By: Sheets, Turner of Tarrant, Fallon H.B. No. 1403

(Senate Sponsor - Estes)

(In the Senate - Received from the House May 14, 2015; May 14, 2015, read first time and referred to Committee on State Affairs; May 22, 2015, reported favorably by the following vote: Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 22, 2015, sent to printer.) Click here to see the committee vote

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to the definition of health care liability claim for the purposes of certain laws governing those claims.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 74.001(a)(13), Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is amended to read as follows:

(13) "Health care liability claim" means a cause of action against a health care provider or physician for treatment, lack of treatment, or other claimed departure from accepted standards of medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care, which proximately results in injury to or death of a claimant, whether the claimant's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract. The term does not include a cause of action described by Section 406.033(a) or 408.001(b), Labor Code, against an employer by an employee or the employee's surviving spouse or heir.

SECTION 2. The change in law made by this Act applies only to a cause of action that accrues on or after the effective date of this Act. A cause of action that accrues before the effective date of this Act is governed by the law applicable to the cause of action immediately before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose.

SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2015.

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