This week, Matthew J. Kita obtained a victory in a medical-malpractice case that was pending in Texas’s Third District Court of Appeals in Austin. Matt represented a mother whose son committed suicide shortly after being released from an Austin-area rehabilitation hospital. Although expert testimony supported the mother’s allegation that the hospital and its staff released her son (who was undisputedly a high-risk for suicide) without a proper assessment or treatment plan, the defendants argued that the case should be dismissed before the court could address the merits of the case. An article in Law360 detailed the court of appeals’ adoption of Kita’s arguments and its rejection of the defendants’ efforts.
Twenty years ago, Texas enacted some of the nation’s strictest damages limitations and procedural hurdles for medical malpractice cases, which has severely limited access to justice for the victims of hospital and physician negligence. One of those hurdles is the requirement of a pre-suit expert report. Although the statute only requires a victim to provide a report that gives “fair notice” of the claim, hospitals and doctors have routinely attempted to force victims to prove the merits of their case before they reach the courthouse door. This decision is a rejection of another attempt to avoid accountability and is an important victory for millions of people who live in the twenty-four counties surrounding Austin, Texas.
Matthew J. Kita acts as Of-Counsel for Arias Sanguinetti. Based in Dallas, Texas, Matt practices primarily as an appellate attorney with a focus on civil-rights and catastrophic-injury cases. He has been recognized for his appellate work by Texas Super Lawyers and by D Magazine every year since 2014.
