The Corpus Christi Medical Center (CCMC) is a part of the Bay Area Healthcare Group (BAHG) who is a nonsubscriber to the workers’ comp system. When an employee at CCMC injured herself at work, she sued her employer for negligence. The employer fought the claim’s designation as negligence and asserted that it was a health care liability claim, because she failed to file the proper reports for a health care liability claim on time and they hoped to get the case dismissed on the grounds it was improperly filed.

Brenda Martinez was a housekeeper at the medical center and one day they were short-staffed so she was asked to perform duties outside of her usual activities. She was assigned to “trash and linen duty” and had to pick up heavy bags over her head which she did not usually do. She started to feel shoulder pain and soreness in her left arm which she reported, but ended up having to get medical care on her own for her injury. Since her employer is a nonsubscriber she claimed they were negligent in failing to train her or supervise her in these new duties, and for failing to provide a safe work environment. She got two physicians, Dr. Paul Genecin and Dr. Gerardo Zavala, to confirm her allegations that her workplace erred when they failed to provide her supervision or a safe workplace.

The BAHG denied this saying that she did file her report correctly under the Texas Medical Liability Act’s (TMLA) requirements for a Health Care Liability Claim (HCLC) and since she filed her reports and her doctor’s opinions in an untimely manner they wanted to dismiss the case. She said that her claim was not a HCLC in the first place so they had no grounds to dismiss her charges. The initial trial court sided with Martinez and the BAHG appealed.

The HCLC is a case against a health care provider/physician for treatment, or lack of treatment, that does not comply with the accepted standards of medical care or safety services related to health care, and which injures the claimant. The TMLA requires that if someone is seeking to recover damages in an HCLC they need to have a medical expert report on their case and they need to file in a timely and compliant manner. To determine whether a claim is a health care liability claim, the courts ask whether the injured claimant was receiving health care at the time of their injury, or assisting in administering care at their time of their injury. Since she was doing neither at the time of her injury her claim was not a health care liability claim and the employer could not have it dismissed. Just because she was working in a “health care setting” does not necessarily mean she was working in a health care capacity. She could proceed with her negligence case since opting out of workers’ comp leaves a business vulnerable to a lawsuit if one of their employees is injured.