Texas Appellate Court Holds Medical Residents Immune From Medical Malpractice Claims

Medical Residents Immune From Malpractice Claims: The Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas (“Texas Appellate Court”) held in its opinion issued on August 18, 2022: “we conclude that the doctors conclusively established that Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.106(f) applied to Owens’s health care liability claims against them and they were entitled to dismissal of Owens’s claims under section 101.106(f). We hold that the trial court erred in denying the motions to dismiss filed by the doctors.”

The Underlying Facts

On February 6, 2010, Telicia Owens went to the Emergency Department at Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center (“Memorial Hermann”), complaining of a severe headache. She was diagnosed that day with a migraine, tension headache, and headache associated with sinuses, but no diagnostic testing was done to rule out any internal problems.

On February 10, 2010, Owens returned to the Emergency Department at Memorial Hermann, complaining of the same persisting symptoms. Owens was seen by Dr. Handyside, who diagnosed her with a headache and sinusitis. Again, no diagnostic testing was performed.

On February 21, 2010, Owens returned to the Emergency Department at Memorial Hermann for a third time, complaining of a headache and blurry vision. At that visit, Owens was treated by Dr. Prater and Dr. Kenneth Totz, an employee of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (“UTHSCH”). Owens was again diagnosed with a headache, but no diagnostic testing was performed.

According to Owens, as a result of the negligence of the doctors in providing her medical care and treatment, she sustained permanent damage to her optic nerves and is completely blind in both of her eyes. She also suffered subsequent, continuous and ongoing damages, including pain and mental anguish.

In 2019, the Texas Legislature enacted Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.004, which became effective on June 10, 2019, and provides that, for purposes of the Texas Tort Claims Act (“TTCA”), “a resident or fellow in a graduate medical training program for physicians that is sponsored by a governmental unit” “is considered to be an employee of [the] governmental unit regardless of the method of payment or source of payment of the resident or fellow.”

The Texas Appellate Court held in the case it was deciding: “Because section 101.004 is a jurisdictional statute that was in effect at the time the trial court signed its order denying the doctors’ motions to dismiss, we conclude that the trial court erred in declining to apply it to Owens’s suit against the doctors.”

“Under the TTCA, a defendant employee is entitled to dismissal under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.106(f), if he establishes that, at the time the plaintiff’s claims arose, (1) he was an employee of a governmental unit, (2) the plaintiff’s suit was based on conduct within the scope of the defendant’s employment with the governmental unit, and (3) the suit could have been brought against the governmental unit under the TTCA … As to the third element—whether Owens could have brought her suit against UTHSCH under the TTCA—Owens argues that the doctors failed to satisfy this element because her claims against the doctors could not have been brought against UTHSCH under the TTCA “at the time they were filed” in 2012. This argument relies on the same faulty premise as the trial court’s conclusion that the doctors were not entitled to dismissal because they could not be “considered to be employees of a governmental unit” until June 10, 2019, a premise that we have already rejected. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.106(f) does not impose the time restriction urged by Owens, and to read such a restriction into the statute would contravene the TTCA’s jurisdictional purpose … we note that the TTCA and Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.106(f) do not impose a deadline for filing a motion to dismiss, and Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.004 is applicable to Owens’s claims against the doctors as long as it was in effect at the time the trial court entered its order denying the doctors’ motions to dismiss … Thus, the doctors established that, at the time they filed their motions to dismiss, Owens’s claims against them could have been brought under the TTCA against UTHSCH.”

Source Prater, M.D. v. Owens, No. 01-21-00264-CV.

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