06-0369 In re Jack Jorden, M.D., et al. from Smith County and the 12th District Court of Appeals, Tyler For relator: R. Brent Cooper, Dallas For real party in interest: Bill Liebbe, Tyler The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue of whether pre-suit deposition rule supersedes medical-malpractice limits. The issue in this effort to take depositions before a lawsuit is filed on a medical malpractice claim, a procedure authorized under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 202, is whether Rule 202 is trumped by statutory medical-malpractice restrictions. In this case a woman's son, a physician, hired a lawyer to investigate the possibility of suing doctors who treated his mother before she died of a heart attack. His counsel petitioned the trial court to depose the mother's primary-care doctor, an emergency-room doctor and representatives of the hospital and clinic where she was treated. The trial court denied the petition for pre-suit depositions. The court of appeals granted mandamus relief, holding that Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code chapter 74, a provision of House Bill 4's sweeping tort reform, did not preclude Rule 202 depositions to investigate the merits of a suit.
