Tex. W. Oaks Hosp., LP v. Williams

371 S.W.3d 171

55 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 1033

TEXAS WEST OAKS HOSPITAL, LP and Texas Hospital Holdings, LLC, Petitioners,

v.Frederick WILLIAMS, Respondent.

No. 10–0603.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued Nov. 8, 2011.

Decided June 29, 2012.

Ryan Lee Clement, Wesson H. Tribble, Tribble, Ross & Wagner, Houston, TX, for Texas West Oaks Hospital, LP.

Charles M. Hessel, Marks Balette & Giessel, P.C., Robert Steven Kwok, William Wade Hoke, Robert Kwok & Associates, Leah Rush Easterby, Houston, TX, for Frederick Williams.

Justice WAINWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, and Justice GUZMAN joined.

At issue in this interlocutory appeal is whether the claims of an employee against his employer, both of whom are health care providers, alleging injuries arising out of inadequate training, supervision, risk-mitigation, and safety in a mental health facility, constitute health care liability claims (HCLCs) under the Texas Medical Liability Act (TMLA or Act). SeeTex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code ch. 74 et seq. We conclude that the TMLA does not require that the claimant be a patient of the health care provider for his claims to fall under the Act, so long as the Act's other requirements are met. We hold that the employee here is properly characterized as a “claimant” under the Act and his allegations against his nonsubscribing employer are health care and safety claims under the TMLA's definition of HCLCs, requiring an expert report to maintain his lawsuit. We further hold that the Act does not conflict with the Texas Workers' Compensation Act (TWCA). We therefore reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Background

Texas West Oaks Hospital, LP and Texas Hospital Holdings, LLC operate Texas West Oaks Hospital (West Oaks), a state-licensed, private mental health hospital located in Houston, Texas. FrederickWilliams, a psychiatric technician and professional caregiver at West Oaks, was injured on the job while supervising a patient, Mario Vidaurre. Vidaurre was admitted to West Oaks on June 11, 2007. Due to his history of paranoid schizophrenia, including manic outbursts and violent behavior directed at family members and professional staff, Vidaurre was placed by his admitting physician on one-to-one observation, an elevated level of supervised care in the psychiatric unit. Vidaurre was also put on “unit restriction,” meaning he could only be taken out of the psychiatric unit by direct order of a physician. A few days after Vidaurre's admission, while Williams was supervising him, Vidaurre became agitated. To calm him, Williams took Vidaurre to an outdoor enclosed smoking area, in violation of the unit-restriction policy. The door to the enclosure locked behind them and the unsupervised area contained no cameras, audio supervision, mirrors, or other monitoring apparatus. Although Williams previously had taken Vidaurre to the smoking area without incident, a physical altercation occurred on this occasion, resulting in Vidaurre's death and injuries to Williams.

Vidaurre's estate sued West Oaks, and later Williams, asserting HCLCs under the TMLA, codified in Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code §§ 74.001–74.507. Williams later asserted cross claims of negligence against West Oaks pursuant to section 406.033 of the Texas Labor Code, a statutory provision governing employee common law claims against employers not subscribed to workers' compensation. SeeTex. Lab.Code § 406.033. West Oaks' status as a nonsubscriber to workers' compensation is uncontroverted, and therefore, Williams' claims against his employer are not barred by the Texas Workers' Compensation Act. See id.; Port Elevator–Brownsville, L.L.C. v. Casados, 358 S.W.3d 238, 241 (Tex.2012) (discussing the “exclusive remedy” doctrine).

Williams alleged that West Oaks was negligent in:

(a) Failing to properly train Williams to work at West Oaks' premises, including warning him of the inherent dangers of working with patients with the conditions and tendencies that Mario Vidaurre possessed; (b) Failing to adequately supervise West Oaks' employees, including Williams, while working with patients with conditions and tendencies that Mario Vidaurre possessed; (c) Failing to provide adequate protocol to avoid and/or decrease the severity of altercations between its employees, such as Williams, and patients; (d) Failing to provide its employees, including Williams, with adequate emergency notification devices to alert other employees of altercations in which assistance is needed; (e) Failing to warn Williams of the dangers that West Oaks knew or should have known were associated with working with patients such as Mr. Vidaurre; and (f) Failing to provide a safe workplace for its employees, including Williams.

West Oaks filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that Williams' claims constituted HCLCs under the TMLA and that Williams had not served an expert report on West Oaks, as required under the Act. SeeTex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 74.001(a)(13) (defining health care liability claims), and § 74.351(a), (b) (requiring a trial court to dismiss a health care liability claim if an expert report is not served within 120 days of filing suit). ¹ Williams responded that his claims sound in ordinary negligence rather than health care liability. Following a hearing, the trial court denied West Oaks' motion. West Oaks then filed this interlocutory appeal. See id. § 51.014(a)(9).

The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's order. 322 S.W.3d 349, 354. The court analyzed Williams' claims as breaches of West Oaks' duty of safety to its employee. Id. at 352. The court of appeals began its analysis from the premise that the phrase “directly related to health care” in section 74.001(a)(13) modifies not only “professional or administrative services,” but also the term “safety.” Id. It concluded that a safety claim “must be directly related to and inseparable from health care.” Id. It is not disputed here that Vidaurre's claims against West Oaks are HCLCs, but Williams argues his claims against West Oaks are not. The court of appeals noted the related nature of the two parties' cases but concluded, based in part on our withdrawn opinion in Marks v. St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, 52 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 1184, withdrawn and superseded on rehearing,319 S.W.3d 658 (Tex.2010), that Williams' claims against West Oaks are separable from health care and are not HCLCs. 322 S.W.3d at 353. Reasoning that the source of West Oaks' duty to Williams is the employer-employee relationship and that the nature of Vidaurre's relationship with West Oaks—patient to health care provider—is different from Williams', the court of appeals concluded that the safety claims “flow from the employment relationship” between Williams and West Oaks and are not “directly related” to health care, as required by the statute. 322 S.W.3d at 352–53;Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 74.001(a)(13). West Oaks filed a petition for review in this Court.

II. Discussion

In seeking to distinguish ordinary negligence claims from HCLCs, the heart of these cases lies in the nature of the acts or omissions causing claimants' injuries and whether the events are within the ambit of the legislated scope of the TMLA. Causes of action that are HCLCs cannot be transmuted to avoid the strictures of the medical liability statute. Omaha Healthcare Ctr., LLC v. Johnson, 344 S.W.3d 392, 394 (Tex.2011); Diversicare Gen. Ptr., Inc. v. Rubio, 185 S.W.3d 842, 851 (Tex.2005). We recognize that the Legislature intended the Texas Medical Liability Insurance Improvement Act (TMLIIA), the TMLA's predecessor, to be broad, and it broadened that scope further in 2003 with its repeal and amendments resulting in the TMLA. Act of May 30, 1977, 65th Leg., R.S., ch. 817, § 1.02(6), 1977 Tex. Gen. Laws 2039, 2040 (former Tex.Rev.Civ. Stat. art. 4590i, § 1.02(6)), repealed by Act of June 2, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S., ch. 204, § 10.09, 2003 Tex. Gen. Laws 847, 884. After the 2003 amendments, the breadth of HCLCs include causes of action against physicians and health care providers for negligence in the provision of “medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care.” Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 74.001(a)(13).

West Oaks argues that Williams' claims, mirroring the same facts as Vidaurre's HCLCs, are HCLCs and therefore implicate the requirement to serve an expert report. Such a conclusion would mandate a dismissal because Williams did not serve a report on West Oaks. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 74.351(a), (b). West Oaks also urges that Williams' status as a health care provider at the hospital—as opposed to a patient—does not remove Williams from the requirement that he pursue his allegations as HCLCs. On the other hand, Williams characterizes his allegations as ordinary negligence claims against a nonsubscriber to the workers' compensation scheme. Williams contends that the court of appeals was correct in concluding that his claims fall outside the HCLC definition and therefore an expert report is not required for his suit to proceed. See322 S.W.3d 349, 353–54. Williams also echoes the court of appeals in asserting that West Oaks' alleged safety and security breaches do not require expert medical testimony and are interchangeable with safety and security issues arising in non-medical settings such as corrections facilities. See id. at 353 (opining that Williams' safety and security claims involve issues also “aris[ing] in other settings, such as jails and prisons”). In essence, Williams argues that the hospital is the mere situs of his claims, that his role as psychiatric technician overseeing a mental patient has no bearing on the character of his claims, and the fact that his claims arose in a mental health facility has little or no bearing on their character.

A. Standard of Review

West...