Quitman Hospital, LLC D/B/A UT Health Quitman v. W. S. a Minor by Duane Stewart ANF

NO. 12-24-00246-CV

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS

TWELFTH COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT

TYLER, TEXAS

QUITMAN HOSPITAL, LLC D/B/A UT § APPEAL FROM THE 402ND
HEALTH QUITMAN,
APPELLANT

V. § JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

W.S., A MINOR BY NEXT FRIEND
DUANE STEWART,
APPELLEE § WOOD COUNTY, TEXAS

MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM

Appellee, W.S., a minor, by next friend Duane Stewart, sued Appellant, Quitman
Hospital, LLC d/b/a UT Health Quitman, claiming to have been falsely imprisoned in the
emergency room. According to W.S.’s expert report, his father brought him to the emergency
room for a laceration to his head. W.S. also had high blood alcohol levels. The emergency room
physician placed an order for “suicide precaution.” After W.S.’s wound was repaired, he and his
father felt they were subsequently improperly detained and falsely imprisoned, as they were not
discharged or allowed to leave until the next day.
W.S. filed the expert report of Shannon Meagher, RN, CLNC pursuant to Chapter 74 of
the civil practice and remedies code, after which Quitman filed objections to the report and a
motion to dismiss the case. 1 W.S. subsequently filed the supplemental expert report of Dr.
Matthew Brams, MD. Quitman again objected. W.S. filed yet another supplement from Dr.
Brams. The trial court (1) overruled Quitman’s objections, (2) found that Meagher’s report was

1 The Texas Medical Liability Act requires that a claimant serve an expert report on each party against

whom he asserts a health care liability claim. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 74.351(a) (West Supp. 2023).
“timely served and represented an objective good faith effort to comply with the definition of an
expert report in Subsection (r)(6),” (3) found the three reports to be timely and that they “taken
together, comply with the definition of an expert report in Subsection (r)(6) and satisfy the expert
report requirements of Chapter 74,” and (4) denied the motion to dismiss but granted W.S. a
thirty-day extension. Quitman appealed from this order. W.S. filed a motion to dismiss this
appeal on grounds that “a trial court order denying a Section 74.351(b) motion to dismiss that
also grants a Section 74.351(c) extension is not appealable.”
“A person may appeal from an interlocutory order of a district court, county court at law,
statutory probate court, 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) (West
Supp. 2023) (emphasis added). “[I]f a deficient report is served and the trial court grants a thirty
day extension, that decision—even if coupled with a denial of a motion to dismiss—is not
subject to appellate review.” Ogletree v. Matthews, 262 S.W.3d 316, 321 (Tex. 2007). The
Court explained as follows:

…when a report has been served, the actions denying the motion to dismiss and granting an
extension are inseparable. The statute plainly prohibits interlocutory appeals of orders granting
extensions, and if a defendant could separate an order granting an extension from an order denying
the motion to dismiss when a report has been served, section 51.014(a)(9)’s ban on interlocutory
appeals for extensions would be meaningless. We do not think the Legislature contemplated
severing the order denying the motion to dismiss from the order granting the extension when it
expressly provided that orders granting extensions were not appealable on an interlocutory basis.

Id. (internal citations omitted).
In response to W.S.’s motion to dismiss, Quitman argues that the trial court’s order
constitutes two orders: one granting an extension and the other finding that the reports are
sufficient. Quitman maintains, “It is from that final resolution of the issue—after the extension
was granted and later reports were considered that this appeal is taken.” Quitman attempts to
distinguish Ogletree as follows:

In Ogletree, the plaintiff filed a potentially deficient report. The trial court denied a
motion to dismiss but granted 30 days to cure. The Supreme Court reasoned that it would be
fruitless to consider the objections to the first report without the opportunity for the plaintiff to
cure the defects. It noted that “[i]f a defendant could immediately (and prematurely) appeal, the
court of appeals would address the report’s sufficiency while its deficiencies were presumably
being cured at the trial court level, an illogical and wasteful result.”

2
This case does not present that inefficiency. In this case, the trial court found that the
Appellee had already complied with the extended period and that the reports filed under that
extended period, taken together with the original, timely report, satisfied statutory requirements.
There is nothing left to decide. The inefficiency Ogletree describes runs in the other
direction here. The trial [court] has already ruled on the reports under the extended period. An
appeal now is appropriate as opposed to a cumbersome procedure to require the trial court to hold
the same hearing it already held and find the same reports it already found compliant to be
compliant.

According to Quitman, “a report can be timely but constitute no report at all because it utterly
lacks crucial information.” Quitman argues that Meagher’s report lacked a causation opinion,
and she is unqualified to opine as to physician conduct. Thus, Quitman posits that there was
essentially no report at all, and the trial court could grant no extension.
Since Ogletree, the Texas Supreme Court has held that a “provider may pursue an
interlocutory appeal of the denial of a motion to dismiss when no expert report has been timely
served, whether or not the trial court grants an extension of time.” Badiga v. Lopez, 274 S.W.3d
681, 685 (Tex. 2009) (emphasis added). Further, if a document served on a defendant is so
lacking in substance that it does not qualify as an expert report, an immediate appeal from the
denial of a motion to dismiss is available under Badiga. Scoresby v. Santillan, 346 S.W.3d 546,
555 (Tex. 2011). Accordingly, whether this Court possesses jurisdiction over this appeal
depends on whether W.S.’s reports are so deficient as to constitute no report at all, thereby
allowing an interlocutory appeal regardless of the trial court’s extension.
At this stage, only Nurse Meagher’s multi-page report is in the appellate record. In
Scoresby, the Texas Supreme Court held that a “a document qualifies as an expert report if it
contains a statement of opinion by an individual with expertise indicating that the claim asserted
by the plaintiff against the defendant has merit.” Id. at 549. “An individual’s lack of relevant
qualifications and an opinion’s inadequacies are deficiencies the plaintiff should be given an
opportunity to cure if it is possible to do so.” Id. (emphasis added). 2 “This lenient standard
avoids the expense and delay of multiple interlocutory appeals and assures a claimant a fair
opportunity to demonstrate that his claim is not frivolous.” Id. A “thirty-day extension to cure
deficiencies in an expert report may be granted if the report is served by the statutory deadline, if
it contains the opinion of an individual with expertise that the claim has merit, and if the

2 We also note that the Texas Supreme Court rejected a contention that “the 30–day extension in section

74.351(c) allowing a claimant to ‘cure the deficiency’ permits only amendments by the original expert rather than
substitutions by a new one.” Lewis v. Funderburk, 253 S.W.3d 204, 208 (Tex. 2008) (“statute allows a claimant to
cure a deficiency … that requirement like all others may be satisfied by serving a report from a separate expert”).

3
defendant’s conduct is implicated.” Id. at 557. “All deficiencies, whether in the expert’s
opinions or qualifications, are subject to being cured before an appeal may be taken from the trial
court’s refusal to dismiss the case.” Id.
If Meagher’s report meets the Scoresby standard, the trial court’s order denying
Quitman’s motion to dismiss and granting an extension is not appealable. See id. at 549
(affirming appellate court dismissal for want of jurisdiction where expert report met this test;
therefore, order allowing thirty days to cure deficiencies and denying defendants’ motions to
dismiss was not appealable). We conclude that it does. There appears to be no dispute that
Meagher’s report was timely filed. Moreover, Meagher set forth her expertise: she (1) is a
licensed, registered nurse, (2) has been a nurse since 2011, (3) worked in the hospital setting for
most of her career, including emergency care, psychological emergencies and care, trauma
resuscitation, surgical care, post-operative care, among other clinical nursing services, (4) holds
numerous certificates, and (5) served as an expert nursing consultant with the California Board
of Registered Nursing in Sacramento, during which she performed extensive factual case reviews
to determine whether a California nurse violated or deviated from the applicable standard of care
and reported/served as a consultant for the California Attorney General’s Office and the
Enforcement Division of the Board of Registered Nursing. She is currently a “nursing consultant
where I review facts, testimony, records and other evidence in private legal matters to determine
whether a nurse or nonphysician hospital staff deviated from or violated applicable standards of
care.” Meagher further set forth the standard of care and opined that the conduct of Quitman’s
nursing and physician staff “fell below the standard of care, and such substandard, incompetent
care was a substantial factor in causing and contributing to unwarranted CPS involvement,
mental anguish, humiliation, shame, fright, and mistrust of the healthcare system.” She explains
what Quitman and its staff failed to do to comply with the standard of care. This is sufficient to
meet the lenient standard set forth in Scoresby. 3 See id. at 557 (report was deficient for failure to
state standard of care but met Scoresby standard because “[c]laiming expertise as a neurologist,
[expert] described the injury to Samuel’s brain, ascribed it to the Physicians’ breach of the
standards of care, and stated that their breach caused Samuel’s partial paralysis and other
lingering debilities”).

3 This opinion is not to be construed as an evaluation of the adequacy of Meagher’s qualifications or
opinions.

4
Because Meagher’s report complies with the lenient Scoresby standard, we cannot
conclude that her report is so lacking in substance that it does not qualify as an expert report. 4
Consequently, Section 51.014(a)(9) applies, and we lack jurisdiction over the appeal. See
Envision Radiology Tex., LP v. Trader, No. 05-20-00529-CV, 2022 WL 2826896, at *4 (Tex.
App.—Dallas July 20, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op.) (dismissing for want of jurisdiction where
report satisfied Scoresby standard and court granted extension); see also Westover Continuing
Care Ctr., Ltd. Co. v. Adams, No. 04-21-00121-CV, 2021 WL 5605286, at *3-4, 5 (Tex. App.—
San Antonio Dec. 1, 2021, no pet.) (mem. op.) (same); Pharmacy Healthcare Solutions, Ltd. v.
Pena, 530 S.W.3d 169, 176 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2015, pet. denied) (same). Accordingly, we
grant W.S.’s motion to dismiss and dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.

Opinion delivered August 29, 2024.
Panel consisted of Worthen, C.J., and Bass, Retired J., Twelfth Court of Appeals,
sitting by assignment.

4 The trial court concluded that Meagher’s report represented an objective good faith effort to comply with

the definition of an expert report. Given this finding, it is unclear the basis for the trial court’s decision to grant an
extension. Nevertheless, Meagher’s lack of relevant qualifications and any inadequacies in her opinion are
deficiencies W.S. should be given an opportunity to cure. And by granting W.S. an extension, the trial court
implicitly found that deficiencies in the report could be cured. See Westover Continuing Care Ctr., Ltd. Co. v.
Adams, No. 04-21-00121-CV, 2021 WL 5605286, at *3-4 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Dec. 1, 2021, no pet.) (mem.
op.). A trial court should err on the side of granting additional time and must grant it if the deficiencies are curable.
See Scoresby v. Santillan, 346 S.W.3d 546, 549 (Tex. 2011).

5
COURT OF APPEALS

TWELFTH COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT OF TEXAS

JUDGMENT

AUGUST 29, 2024

NO. 12-24-00246-CV

QUITMAN HOSPITAL, LLC D/B/A UT HEALTH QUITMAN,
Appellant
V.
W. S. A MINOR BY NEXT FRIEND DUANE STEWART,
Appellee

Appeal from the 402nd District Court
of Wood County, Texas (Tr.Ct.No. 2023-657)

THIS CAUSE came to be heard on the appellate record and the motion to
dismiss filed by W.S., a minor by next friend Duane Stewart; and the same being considered, it is
the opinion of this Court that this appeal should be dismissed.

It is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED by this Court that
the motion to dismiss be granted and that this appeal be, and the same is, hereby dismissed for
want of jurisdiction; and that this decision be certified to the court below for observance.

By per curiam opinion.
Panel consisted of Worthen, C.J., and Bass, Retired J., Twelfth Court of Appeals,
sitting by assignment.