Catterson v. Martin

Decided June 10, 1999

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1999-06-10

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Such a result would reward negligent doctors for the death of their patients. For no good reason, such a rule would make it cheaper in some cases (like this one) to kill a patient than to maim him. Further, it would encourage defendants to prolong litigation in hope that a plaintiffs claims would die with him. [[Image here]] Transformation of the common-law claims to statutory claims because of Donald Martin’s death does not suddenly end their protection under the open-courts doctrine. Though the claims are now statutory, they were not statutory when the negligence occurred, when the suit was filed, or at any time before Mr. Martin died. Because the claims were cognizable common-law causes of action when filed and at all times before Mr. Martin died, we hold that the open-courts doctrine applies and these claims are not barred by limitations.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Batten v. Hunt

Relies on Martin v. Catterson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1999-06-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 41 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably County of Cameron v. Brown (2002), Horizon/CMS Healthcare Corporation v. Auld (2000)

41 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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PER CURIAM.

¶1In determining that the Texas Constitution’s open courts provision protects the Martins’ wrongful death and survivorship claims from the bar of limitations, the court of appeals stated:

Transformation of the common-law claims to statutory claims because of Donald Martin’s death does not suddenly end their protection under the open courts doctrine. Though the claims are now statutory, they were not statutory when the negligence occurred, when the suit was filed, or at any time before Mr. Martin died. Because the claims were cognizable common-law causes of action when filed and at all times before Mr. Martin died, we hold that the open courts doctrine applies and these claims are not barred by limitations.

¶2981 S.W.2d 222, 226. In denying Dr. Alan Catterson and Kelsey-Seybold Clime’s petition for review, we neither approve nor disapprove of this language in the court of appeals’ opinion.