Cothran v. Jauregui

Holding

In a medical malpractice claim, the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the trial court’s ruling sustaining the defendant physician’s plea in bar asserting that the statute of limitations barred the claim. Although there was a possibility that plaintiff might return to see the physician at some unknown point in the future, a substantial interruption occurred in the course of plaintiff’s examination and treatment concerning a lump that plaintiff had found in her breast. She and the physician proceeded after an October 2018 appointment as though the physician-patient relationship had ended, and the longer that interruption continued, the more substantial it became. Given that plaintiff did not return until approximately ten months later, in August 2019, it cannot be said that the trial court’s finding that this amounted to a substantial interruption in the course of examination was plainly wrong or without evidence to support it. Thus, the trial court did not err in sustaining the physician’s plea in bar. The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the trial court’s decision sustaining the defendant’s plea in bar is reinstated.