Court Opinion

ID: 9678389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:18:25.48073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:04.073717
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Justice,
concurs and dissents.
I join in parts I, II, and III of the Court’s opinion. Because Dr. Kalra and Nurse Kas-sen did not establish that they exercised *15governmental discretion in their treatment of Pennie Johnson, I agree that the claims against them should be remanded for further proceedings. I do not join, however, in part IV of the Court’s opinion. I believe that respondents alleged an injury arising from use of tangible personal property by Parkland Hospital and Southwestern Medical Center. I would therefore also remand the claims against those defendants for further proceedings.
I agree with the Court that plaintiffs have not stated a claim of misuse of tangible personal property under the Tort Claims Act regarding either Pennie Johnson’s medical records, the difficult patient file or the emergency room procedures manual. See University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston v. York, 871 S.W.2d 175 (Tex.1994). I conclude, however, that plaintiffs’ allegations relating to Johnson’s medication do state such a claim.
There can be little doubt that prescription drugs are tangible personal property. Although not statutorily defined, “tangible personal property refers to something that has a corporeal, concrete, and palpable existence.” York, 871 S.W.2d at 178. Unlike medical records, which are useful because they memorialize intangible information, the utility of a prescription drug is in the physical properties of the drug itself.
I further conclude that plaintiffs adequately pled a use of Johnson’s medication, causing injury, by their allegation that Parkland’s and Southwestern’s agents negligently allowed Johnson to leave the hospital without returning her previously confiscated medication. I agree with the Court that a “non-use” of property is insufficient to state a claim under the Tort Claims Act, and that the failure to prescribe or administer a particular drug would not support a waiver of sovereign immunity. This case, however, does not involve the mere failure to provide necessary medicine. Rather it concerns the actual confiscation of medicine, prescribed elsewhere, which Johnson already had in her possession. This states a claim of misuse, not merely nonuse, of the pills. If defendants had really “not used” the medication, it would have remained in Johnson’s possession, not theirs.
Accordingly, I join in the Court’s judgment affirming the judgment of the court of appeals as to Kalra and Kassen. Because I would also affirm the judgment of the court of appeals as to Parkland Hospital and Southwestern Medical Center, I dissent from the remainder of the Court’s judgment.