Morris v. UMBERSON

312 S.W.3d 763, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 8577, 2009 WL 3672915
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 5, 2009
Docket01-09-00644-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 312 S.W.3d 763 (Morris v. UMBERSON) 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
Morris v. UMBERSON, 312 S.W.3d 763, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 8577, 2009 WL 3672915 (Tex. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

OPINION

TERRY JENNINGS, Justice.

In this interlocutory appeal, 1 appellant, Michael W. Morris, M.D., challenges the trial court’s order denying his motion to dismiss the health care liability claim of appellee, Mary Umberson. In two issues, Dr. Morris contends that the trial court erred in not dismissing Umberson’s claim for failure to serve an expert report within 120 days of filing suit 2 and in granting Umberson a thirty-day extension to cure deficiencies in her late served expert report that was “fundamentally deficient and, consequently, represented no report at all.” Umberson has filed in this Court a motion to dismiss Dr. Morris’s interlocutory appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

We dismiss the interlocutory appeal.

Background

On November 21, 2008, Umberson filed her health care liability claim alleging that Dr. Morris was negligent in attempting to “insert a port-a-cath chemotherapy port as a part of her chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.” She alleges that Dr. Morris undertook a mode of treatment that “a reasonable and prudent member of the medical profession would not have taken under the same or similar circumstances.” Dr. Morris was served with citation on December 9, 2008, and his answer was due on January'5, 2009. However, he did not timely answer. On February 6, 2009, Um-berson filed with the trial court Dr. Ahsan Ali’s expert report and curriculum vitae, but she did not serve it on Dr. Morris, who still had not answered.

On April 30, 2009, Umberson filed a “Motion for Interlocutory Default Judgment as to Liability Only,” and on May 7, 2009, Dr. Morris filed his answer. He then filed his response to Umberson’s motion on May 8, 2009. On May 11, 2009, Umberson served Dr. Morris the expert report of Dr. Ahsan Ali and his curriculum vitae.

In his report, Dr. Ali reviewed the history of the incident and Umberson’s prior health, discussed the applicable standard of care for placement of a central venous catheter, or port-a-cath, explained how Dr. Morris breached that standard of care, and assigned cause for Umberson’s injury to Dr. Morris’s failure to meet the standard of care.

Dr. Morris moved to dismiss Umber-son’s claim on the ground that she had not timely served him with a copy of her expert report, and he also objected to the sufficiency of the report. The trial court denied Dr. Morris’s motion, but, finding that the expert report was deficient as to causation, granted Umberson a thirty-day extension to cure-the deficiency. Dr. Morris then filed this interlocutory appeal *765 challenging the trial court’s order denying his motion and granting Umberson a thirty-day extension to cure.

Interlocutory Appeal

At the outset, we must determine whether we have jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal. Umberson argues that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the appeal because “[Dr. Morris] filed it before the deadline to supplement the expert report expired.” Umberson asserts that the trial court denied Dr. Morris’s motion to dismiss and granted her a thirty-day extension to cure deficiencies in her report. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 51.014(a)(9) (Vernon 2008).

If a trial court has not entered a final and appealable order, we have jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal only if authorized by statute. Stary v. DeBord, 967 S.W.2d 852, 352-58 (Tex.1998). Section 51.014(a)(9) provides,

A person may appeal from an interlocutory order of a district court, county court at law, or county court that denies all or part of the relief sought by a motion under Section 74.351(b), except that an appeal may not be taken from an order granting an extension under Section 74.351.

Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 51.014(a)(9). Section 74.351, in pertinent part, provides:

(a)In a health care liability claim, a claimant shall, not later than the 120th day after the date the original petition was filed, serve on each party or the party’s attorney one or more expert reports, with a curriculum vitae of each expert listed in the report for each physician or health care provider against whom a liability claim is asserted. The date for serving the report may be extended by written agreement of the affected parties. Each defendant physician or health care provider whose conduct is implicated in a report must file and serve any objection to the sufficiency of the report not later than the 21st day after the date it was served, failing which all objections are waived.
(b) If, as to a defendant physician or health care provider, an expert report has not been served within the period specified by Subsection (a), the court, on the motion of the affected physician or health care provider, shall, subject to Subsection (c), enter an order that:
(1) awards to the affected physician or health care provider reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of court incurred by the physician or health care provider; and
(2) dismisses the claim with respect to the physician or health care provider, with prejudice to the refiling of the claim.
(c) If an expert report has not been served within the period specified by Subsection (a) because elements of the report are found deficient, the court may grant one 30-day extension to the claimant in order to cure the deficiency. If the claimant does not receive notice of the court’s ruling granting the extension until after the 120-day deadline has passed, then the 30-day extension shall run from the date the plaintiff first received the notice.

Id. § 74.351(a)-(c) (Vernon 2008).

An expert report may be deemed untimely filed under section 74.351(a) if it is served before the 120-day deadline, but is deficient. CHCA Mainland L.P. v. Burkhalter, 227 S.W.3d 221, 225 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2007, no pet.); see Ogletree v. Matthews, 262 S.W.3d 316, 320- *766 21 (Tex.2007). In its discretion, a trial court may then grant one thirty-day extension to cure defects. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code ANN. § 74.351(c). A defendant may not appeal from an order denying his motion to dismiss if the trial court also grants such an extension. Id. § 51.014(a)(9). This allows “plaintiffs the opportunity to cure defects in existing reports. If a defendant could immediately appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss, the court of appeals would be reviewing the report’s sufficiency while its deficiencies were presumably being cured in the trial court.” Badiga v. Lopez, 274 S.W.3d 681, 684 (Tex.2009). However, a trial court has no discretion to grant an extension if no report is filed by the deadline, and a defendant may properly appeal an order denying his motion and granting such an extension. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
312 S.W.3d 763, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 8577, 2009 WL 3672915, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morris-v-umberson-texapp-2009.