Hampton v. Thome

687 S.W.3d 496

Dorothy HAMPTON, Petitioner,

v.Leonard THOME, Respondent

No. 22-0435

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued September 14, 2023

OPINION DELIVERED: March 8, 2024

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District of Texas

Diana L. Faust, Michelle E. Robberson, Dallas, Stacy T. Garcia, James B. Edwards, Stafford, Katherine Oncken, Summer Lee Frederick, for Respondent.

Collin Don Cobb, Beaumont, for Petitioner.

Justice Blacklock delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, Justice Busby, Justice Bland, Justice Huddle, and Justice Young joined.

The Legislature requires "[a]ny person … asserting a health care liability claim" to "give written notice of such claim" to certain defendants "at least 60 days before the filing of a suit." Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 74.051(a). The notice "must be accompanied by a medical authorization in the form specified by" section 74.052. Id. § 74.052(a). This medical authorization form enables the defendant to obtain the plaintiff’s medical records from other health care providers.

The notice required by section 74.051(a) can affect the statute of limitations as follows: "Notice given as provided in this chapter shall toll the applicable statute of limitations to and including a period of 75 days following the giving of the notice." Id. § 74.051(c). This Court held in Jose. Carreras, M.D., P.A. v. Marroquin that when a plaintiff gives the notice without a medical authorization form, the 75-day tolling period is unavailable. 339 S.W.3d 68, 74 (Tex. 2011).

In today’s case, the notice was accompanied by a medical authorization form closely resembling the one required by the Legislature. Relying on the tolling provision, the plaintiff filed suit outside the usual statute of limitations but within the 75-day tolling period offered by section 74.051(c). After discovery, the defendant contended that the plaintiff’s medical authorization form omitted some of the required health care providers and omitted a provision authorizing disclosure of information by the plaintiff’s future health care providers. The defendant argued that these deficiencies in the form meant that the 75-day tolling period never applied, which meant that sixteen months of litigation had all been for nothing because the suit was filed outside the limitations period. The trial court rejected this argument, but the court of appeals reversed, holding that the 75-day tolling period had all along been unavailable due to deficiencies in the medical authorization form file plaintiff served at the beginning of the case. Thome v. Hampton, 683 S.W.3d 22, 29-30 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2022).

[1–3] We hold that an imperfect medical authorization form is nevertheless a medical authorization form, which is sufficient to toll the statute of limitations for 75 days under section 74.051(c), The plaintiff in a health care liability claim has a statutory obligation to proactively notify the defendant of the health care providers required to be disclosed in the authorization form. A mistake or omission in this regard is not without consequence, and courts should certainly never countenance deliberate defiance of a statute’s clear commands. When it comes to calculating the deadline for filing suit, however, Texas law favors bright-line rules that enable parties and courts to know with certainty—as early in the litigation as possible—whether the suit is time-barred. Whatever imperfections or omissions existed in the plaintiff’s medical authorization form in this case, it was genuinely a medical authorization form resembling the one required by the Legislature, and the plaintiff served it with the notice of claim. This was sufficient, as we understand this statutory scheme, to trigger the 75-day tolling period, which means the suit was timely.

[4] Any defects or omissions in the medical authorization form that came to light during the litigation could have been adequately addressed by the statutory remedy of abatement, by additional discovery, or even—where departure from the statutory requirements is deliberate or in bad faith—by sanctions up to and including dismissal, The limitations period, however, is a threshold matter that should, whenever possible, be established with clarity at the outset, We do not understand Chapter 74 to require courts to entertain satellite litigation over whether the statute of limitations was actually never tolled because defects were later discovered in the plaintiff’s medical authorization form.

The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the court of appeals to consider the defendant’s remaining arguments for reversal of the district court’s judgment.

I.

On March 25, 2014, Dorothy Hampton went to the Medical Center of Southeast Texas with abdominal pain in her left side. She was diagnosed with an abdominal hernia, and she underwent surgery the next day. Two days later, Dr. Leonard Thome decided to release her from the hospital. That night, Hampton fell at home and was found on the floor the next day, confused and disoriented. She was quickly readmitted to the hospital, and when asked about the fall, Hampton claimed she could not remember the past 24 hours, Hampton was released to a nursing facility after several more days in the hospital.

On November 9, 2015, Hampton's lawyer sent a letter to Dr. Thome notifying him of Hampton’s intent to bring a health care liability claim alleging that Hampton was released prematurely from the hospital. The letter claimed that Hampton developed pain in her right shoulder after her fall and began treatment at Beaumont Bone and Joint Institute. Attached to the letter was a medical authorization form permitting Dr. Thome to obtain Hampton’s health information from the listed providers. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 74.052(e). The authorization form listed two providers—the Medical Center of Southeast Texas and Beaumont Bone and Joint Institute.

Hampton sued on May 31, 2016, alleging that Dr. Thome’s negligent decision to release Hampton from the hospital caused Hampton’s fall and led to permanent mental and physical injury. Because the events in question occurred in March 2014, the usual two-year time clock had run out by the time Hampton sued. Hampton’s petition, however, contended that her timely notice of the claim tolled the statute of limitations for 75 days under section 74.051(c) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.

After over a year of discovery, Dr. Thome moved in August 2017 for summary judgment on limitations grounds. He contended that the limitations period expired on March 28, 2016, and that Hampton’s notice had not tolled the statute of limitations because it was accompanied by a deficient medical authorization form. Dr. Thome alleged that the medical authorization form failed to meet three statutory requirements: (1) it omitted a required provision authorizing Dr. Thome to obtain records from providers who would treat Hampton after the date of the authorization form; (2) it did not list several providers who treated Hampton in connection with her alleged injuries; and (3) it did not list several providers who had treated Hampton in the five years preceding the incident.

The district court denied Dr. Thome’s motion for summary judgment. A jury trial proceeded on May 6, 2019. The jury found that Dr. Thome’s negligence proximately caused Hampton’s injuries and returned a $555,678 verdict. The court rendered a final judgment of $255,678, plus interest and costs, in keeping with the statutory limit on noneconomic damages for health care liability claims. See id. § 74.301. Dr. Thome filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, in which he reiterated his argument that the claims were barred by limitations because of deficiencies in the medical authorization form. The court denied the motion, reasoning that Dr. Thome had not shown prejudice caused by the deficiencies in the form.

The court of appeals reversed. It held that the form Hampton provided to Dr. Thome was insufficient to trigger the 75-day tolling period because it fell "well short of authorizing Dr. Thome to obtain the scope of information he was entitled to obtain." 683 S.W.3d at 29. The court of appeals found that the form listed "only two of Hampton’s thirteen health care providers" that treated Hampton for her injuries or had seen her in the five-year period preceding the incident. Id. at 29. It further found that the form failed to include "language that extends [the release authorization] to health care providers that treated Hampton after the date Hampton signed the release" as directed by the statute. Id. The court of appeals held that tolling was unavailable because the defects in Hampton’s form were at least as severe as the defects identified in several other appellate decisions in which tolling was denied. Id. The court of appeals rendered judgment against Hampton because, with the tolling provision unavailable, the two-year statute of limitations barred her suit.

II.

[5] We begin by noting that Hampton’s lawyer could have insulated his client’s claims from any question of timeliness by filing suit within the usual two-year limitations period rather than relying on the statute’s 75-day tolling provision. Neither the record on appeal nor counsel’s statements at oral argument reveal any reason the extra 75 days were needed. By relying on the tolling provision, Hampton’s counsel added to the defendant’s arsenal of arguments in exchange for little apparent benefit to Hampton. Regardless of how this appeal is resolved, the decision to pin Hampton’s entire case on the availability of the 75-day tolling period has generated extensive additional litigation that remains pending seven years after the suit was filed and that could, it appears, have easily been avoided altogether by a slightly earli- er filing. Statutes of limitation are harsh, and the practice of waiting...