East Texas Medical Center Regional Health Care System, Individually and D/B/A East Texas Medical Center-Crockett v. Louisa D. Reddic, 12-13-00107-CV

Background

Louisa Reddic, a visitor, slipped on a floor mat in the lobby between the hospital entrance and front desk at East Texas Medical Center–Crockett and sued the hospital on a premises-liability theory.
The hospital moved to dismiss under the Texas Medical Liability Act (the Act), asserting Reddic’s claim was a health care liability claim (HCLC) and that she failed to serve the required expert report.
The trial court denied the motion; the court of appeals reversed, concluding maintenance of the floor in an area frequented by patients had an indirect relationship to health care and thus was an HCLC.
The Supreme Court granted review to decide whether a visitor’s lobby-slip claim is an HCLC under the Act, focusing on whether the alleged safety-standard violations have a substantive nexus to provision of health care.
The Court applied the Ross v. St. Luke’s factors (which probe the relationship between alleged safety breaches and health-care duties) and found the record did not show such a substantive relationship here.
The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded for further proceedings, holding Reddic’s claim is not an HCLC on this record.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Reddic’s slip-and-fall claim is an HCLC under the Texas Medical Liability Act	Reddic: facts are like Ross; the allegations lack a substantive relationship to health care and thus are not an HCLC	Hospital: safety-standard breach in a hospital lobby relates to patient safety and is governed by health-care regulations, so it is an HCLC	Not an HCLC: record fails to show substantive nexus between the alleged floor/mat maintenance failures and provision of health care
Whether federal/state/accrediting regulations convert general premises duties into HCLC duties	Reddic: general safety rules or joint-commission-type standards do not make ordinary floor care a health-care duty	Hospital: Medicare, Joint Commission, and state licensing/safety requirements show the duties are health-care–related	Regulations alone, absent record showing they underlie the claim and relate substantively to patient-care duties, do not make the claim an HCLC
Whether location inside hospital alone makes a claim an HCLC	Reddic: mere location inside a hospital is insufficient to establish an HCLC	Hospital: lobby is frequented by patients so location suffices to implicate patient-safety duties	Mere location inside a hospital is insufficient; more direct substantive nexus required
Whether dismissal under the Act was required for failure to serve expert report	Reddic: Act’s expert-report dismissal applies only if claim is an HCLC	Hospital: because claim is an HCLC, dismissal was required	Dismissal under the Act not warranted because claim is not an HCLC on this record

Key Cases Cited

Ross v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hosp., 462 S.W.3d 496 (Tex. 2015) (safety-standards HCLC requires a substantive nexus to provision of health care; sets non-exhaustive factors)
Texas West Oaks Hosp., L.P. v. Williams, 371 S.W.3d 171 (Tex. 2012) (safety-standards claims against health-care providers may be HCLCs in some contexts)
Loaisiga v. Cerda, 379 S.W.3d 248 (Tex. 2012) (examines HCLC scope for patient-assault claim during treatment)
Harris Methodist Fort Worth v. Ollie, 342 S.W.3d 525 (Tex. 2011) (patient slip-and-fall after bathing held directly related to health care)
Yamada v. Friend, 335 S.W.3d 192 (Tex. 2010) (whether a claim is an HCLC depends on the underlying nature of the claim)
Denton Reg’l Med. Ctr. v. LaCroix, 947 S.W.2d 941 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1997, pet. denied) (regulations and internal policies may sometimes inform hospital standard of care)