Healthcare Centers of Texas, Inc. v. Rigby

97 S.W.3d 610, 2002 WL 31769624
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 13, 2003
Docket14-00-00790-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 97 S.W.3d 610 (Healthcare Centers of Texas, Inc. v. Rigby) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Healthcare Centers of Texas, Inc. v. Rigby, 97 S.W.3d 610, 2002 WL 31769624 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinions

CORRECTED OPINION

CHARLES W. SEYMORE, Justice.

We withdraw our opinion of March 7, 2002 and issue this corrected opinion. Ap-pellee’s Motion For Rehearing is overruled.

Healthcare Centers of Texas d/b/a The LaPorte Healthcare Center appeals a judgment in favor of Virginia Martine Rig-by on the following grounds: (1) exemplary damages are barred or capped by chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code; (2) the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support the jury’s verdict on the cause of action for negligence; (3) the trial court failed to provide for segregation of exemplary damages in the jury charge; (4) the actual and exemplary damage awards were excessive; and (5) because of cumulative errors of law, Healthcare is entitled to a new trial in the interest of fairness and justice. The jury awarded Rigby $50 million in punitive damages and $5 million in actual damages. The trial judge remitted those amounts to $10 million and $1 million, respectively. Finding that Texas law prohibits punitive damages in this case, we vacate that portion of the court’s judgment and affirm the remainder of the judgment.

Facts

This case arises out of an attempted sexual assault by Morris Jones on Jewel Underwood while both were residents at LaPorte Healthcare Center. Jones was admitted to Anahuac Healthcare Center in December 1995. Anahuac and LaPorte are nursing homes owned by Healthcare Centers of Texas, Inc. By October 1996, Jones had begun to exhibit inappropriate behavior at the Anahuac facility. Nurses at Anahuac testified that Jones repeatedly sat in the public rooms of the nursing home with his pants unzipped and his penis out in front of other residents. Anah-uac nursing home kept cats and kittens at its facility because it was thought that pets would be therapeutic for the residents. Nurses observed Jones several times on the patio outside the dining room using the cats as masturbation aids.

After observing several incidents of inappropriate behavior with cats, Joanne Mathis, a nurse at Anahuac, observed Jones attempting to sexually assault a male resident in a closed restroom. The resident was blind, disoriented, and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Jones was also seen wandering into residents’ rooms and closing their doors. When confronted with this aberrant behavior, Jones became angry and denied any wrongdoing. The daughter of a staff member reported that Jones tried to follow her into a linen closet. She stated that he pulled on the doorknob to get into the closet with her.

The overall belief of the nurses and staff at Anahuac was that Jones was a threat to other residents and should not be in a nursing home. Although the nurses attempted to monitor Jones more closely than other residents, there was not enough staff to fully protect other patients. Several staff members testified that it was foreseeable he would sexually assault an elderly, disabled resident. The day Jones was discharged from Anahuac, Alicia Morgan, the director of nursing, wrote on his chart, “This resident is at risk for harming others.” The nurses repeatedly informed Dr. Keith Rapp of Jones’s aberrant behavior. Dr. Rapp was the medical director of both the Anahuac and LaPorte Healthcare [615]*615Centers and the personal physician for Jones and Mrs. Underwood.

Dr. Kenneth Huff, a psychologist, was asked to evaluate and treat Jones for depression in April 1996. After two weeks, Dr. Rapp directed that Dr. Huff discontinue treatment, stating that Jones was no longer depressed. Dr. Huff later saw Jones on October 17, 1996, and diagnosed him as having major depression and sexual paraphilia, which Dr. Huff defined as, “sexual acting out.” Dr. Huff’s records contained observations of Jones’s sexual impropriety with cats and expressed the concern that Jones may behave in a sexually inappropriate manner with low-functioning female residents. Dr. Huff concluded that Jones was “very dangerous” and needed to be placed in a more secure facility. Dr. Huff reported that a crisis atmosphere surrounding Jones had reached a crescendo by mid-October 1996. Dr. Huff reported that Jones’s daughter wanted to get help for her father, but she could not bring him to her home because she could not trust him around small children.

On November 27, 1996, Jones was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric unit at San Jacinto Hospital. Dr. Wamble of San Jacinto Health Care Center wrote in Jones’s chart that Jones “is likely to cause serious harm to others.” On December 10, 1996, Dr. Wamble sought to discharge Jones from San Jacinto. The nursing home administrator and director of nursing at Anahuac sent Robin McDaniel, the assistant director of nursing at Anahuac, to San Jacinto to determine whether Jones could return to Anahuac. Mrs. McDaniel reviewed Jones’s records and discovered that he had been videotaped masturbating in the open, had been verbally aggressive with the staff, and had been hoarding food in his room — all behaviors Jones had exhibited at Anahuac. Further, Jones propositioned a female staff member at San Jacinto for sex. Although Jones was taking medication, he continued to behave inappropriately at San Jacinto. Mrs. McDaniel concluded that Jones should not be placed in any nursing home and that he needed a more restrictive environment.

Anahuac refused to accept Jones from San Jacinto. Dr. Rapp then called Green Acres, another nursing home owned by Healthcare Centers of Texas where he was a medical director. The administrator at Green Acres reviewed Jones’s records and refused to take him because he did not want that type of resident. Dr. Rapp then called Dorsey Greer, the administrator of LaPorte nursing home.

Dorsey Greer testified that Dr. Rapp told him he had a potential new resident for LaPorte who had been at Anahuac, then discharged to San Jacinto Hospital. Dr. Rapp told Greer that Anahuac had refused to accept Jones from San Jacinto. According to Greer’s testimony, Dr. Rapp stated that Jones had been a model resident except for one incident of inappropriate sexual behavior with a cat. It was Dr. Rapp’s opinion that the incident occurred because Jones did not take his medication. Greer testified that in admitting a new resident, it was his policy to review the records from the discharging institution and any other pertinent information about the resident. He would ordinarily send the director of nursing to the psychiatric hospital to review the records, but he did not do so in the case of Jones. Jones was admitted to LaPorte on December 12, 1996. Greer testified that had he known of Jones’s history at Anahuac, he would have moved Jones closer to the nurses’ station and would have discharged him “the first time he went near another person.”

Two or three days after Jones’s admission, Glenda Raglund, the quality assur-[616]*616anee nurse for Anahuac and LaPorte, learned Jones had been admitted to La-Porte. She immediately called Greer and asked him, “Why in the bleep did you let this person get into our facility?” She reported Jones’s history at Anahuac and told Greer he should make arrangements to place Jones in a more secure facility as soon as possible. Greer began to explore alternatives for discharging Jones, however, pursuant to State regulations, Jones could not be discharged until he displayed aberrant behavior at LaPorte.

Greer instructed the director of nursing to meet with the nurses and require them to watch Jones closely.

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Bluebook (online)
97 S.W.3d 610, 2002 WL 31769624, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/healthcare-centers-of-texas-inc-v-rigby-texapp-2003.