Med Mal News

In response to a 2012 Texas Supreme Court decision, Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, has introduced House Bill 956, which would limit health care liability claims to medical patients or those representing them. Under the terms proposed by the bill, a health care liability claim would have to be directly related to the provision of health care. The bill's language explains that the term “health care” does “not include claims arising from an injury to or death of a person who is not a patient, including employment and premises liability claims.” The need for this legislation, according to its advocates, is to remedy the situation created by the State Supreme Court's Texas West Oaks Hospital v. Williams decision, which held that a claimant did not have to be a patient of a health care provider for his claim to fall under the Texas Medical Liability Act. David Chamberlain, president of the Texas Chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates, explains: “There has been some confusion over how far this goes, and there has been a lot of litigation over it. If we could calm the litigation and make it more clear about who is covered or who is not, that would be a good thing.”