AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) - A lawsuit over the death of a woman who hit her head in the parking lot after her wheelchair tipped over is subject to a Texas law governing malpractice suits, the state’s highest court ruled, reversing an appeals court that held the accident lacked a “substantial nexus” to health care.
Carmelina “Millie” Smith was a recent arrival at the DaySpring Assisted Living Community when her daughter Christine Faber came to take her to an appointment. Smith had a history of falls so Faber requested an employee wheel her to the car. The chair hit a crack in the sidewalk and tipped over. Smith hit her head and died shortly thereafter.
Faber sued DaySpring for negligence, negligent hiring, and premises liability. DaySpring moved to dismiss her suit, arguing she failed to file an expert report within the 120 day deadline of the Texas Medical Liability Act. Faber then amended her complaint, removing all references to employee negligence and leaving only a claim of premises liability based on the crack in the concrete.
The trial court dismissed her claim and a panel of the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas affirmed. Faber requested an en banc hearing and in an 8-5 decision, the larger panel reversed the dismissal. It found Faber’s claims only involved the condition of the sidewalk and had “no substantive nexus” to DaySpring’s duties as a health care provider.
DaySpring then appealed and the Texas Supreme Court reinstated the dismissal in a June 30 opinion.
Describing it as “an often-litigated issue,” the court said the TMLA requires courts to look at all the relevant facts in a case before determining whether a lawsuit falls under it, requiring an expert opinion to proceed.
If the underlying facts could support a claim against a health care provider for deviating from the standard of care, the court said, the TMLA applies regardless of how the lawsuit is pled. The statute says claims can involve health care, safety or professional or administrative services that cause a patient’s injury or death.
The Supreme Court criticized the appeals court’s analysis, saying it was “skewed at the outset” because the en banc court “took an overly narrow view of the relevant facts rather than considering the record as a whole.” Considering both the sidewalk crack and the conduct of the employee’s conduct, the court said, the accident clearly occurred when Smith was receiving care from a covered entity.
“Courts need not spend time and resources trying to parse whether the claim falls on the health care or safety side of the line,” the Supreme Court ruled. It is enough that the claimant is a patient, the injury occurred in a health care setting subject to safety standards, and it happened when the patient was receiving health care.
Justice Jeff Boyd dissented, joined by justices Debra Lehrmann and John Phillip Devine. He said DaySpring exempted itself from TMLA by requiring Smith and Faber to sign a form saying the center “does NOT provide …health care services” other than assisting with medications.
“A claim alleging violations of safety standards may qualify as a health care liability claim even if the claimant has no physician–patient relationship with the defendant, but only if the safety standards at issue have a substantive nexus to health care,” the justice wrote. Texas law defines “assisted living” as a category separate from medical or health care, he said, and should only be covered by TMLA when they also provide physician services.