Creech v. Columbia Med. Ctr. of Las Colinas Subsidiary, L.P.
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-10-01545-CV (February 13, 2013)
Justices O’Neill, FitzGerald (Opinion), and Lang-Miers
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-10-01545-CV (February 13, 2013)
Justices O’Neill, FitzGerald (Opinion), and Lang-Miers
The court affirmed a take-nothing judgment based on a jury’s 2004 verdict for defendants (a hospital and two nurses) in a wrongful death case arising out of the sudden death in 2001 of a 41-year-old man while in treatment at the hospital. The jury’s verdict had been reinstated after an order granting a new trial was set aside by mandamus from the Texas Supreme Court. On this appeal, the court rejected appellants’ argument that defendants’ expert testimony on the cause of death lacked probative value.
In 2004, following an almost four-week trial and a unanimous verdict for defendants, the trial court granted plaintiffs’ motion for new trial “in the interests of fairness and justice.” The supreme court granted mandamus requiring the trial court to specify its reasons for refusing to accept the jury’s verdict. In re Columbia Med. Ctr., 290 S.W.3d 204 (Tex. 2009). The case was subsequently transferred to a different trial court, which denied plaintiffs’ motion for new trial and entered judgment on the original verdict.
Because plaintiffs had not challenged the reliability of the expert’s opinion in the trial court, they were limited on appeal to arguing that the opinion “was conclusory, speculative, or assumed facts contrary to those on the face of the record.” After a detailed review of the expert’s testimony and other pertinent evidence, the court found appellants’ arguments were not persuasive. “Weaknesses in the facts underlying an expert’s opinion generally go to the testimony’s weight rather than its admissibility, and an opinion is no evidence only if it is based completely on speculation and surmise.” In the end, the jury decided the “battle of the experts” in defendants’ favor, and the court would not substitute its own judgment.
