Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of February 13, 2017.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Ahmed v. Sosa, No. 02-15-00368-CV (Feb. 16, 2017) (Meier, J., joined by Walker and Sudderth, JJ.).

Held:  Civil practice and remedies code section 41.0105 did not obligate the trial court to reduce the portion of a judgment rendered on a jury verdict for past medical expenses in light of a health care provider’s post-verdict, prejudgment agreement to reduce its lien against the plaintiff’s recovery of the same.

D.A. v. Tex. Health Presbyterian Hosp. of Denton, No. 02-16-00148-CV (Feb. 16, 2017) (Sudderth, J., joined by Meier, J.; Gabriel, J., concurs without opinion).

Held:  Civil practice and remedies code section 74.153, which provides for a willful and wanton standard for liability, does not apply to emergency medical care provided in an obstetrical unit when the patient was not evaluated and treated in a hospital emergency department immediately prior to receiving the emergency medical care.

Bocanegra v. State, No. 02-15-00198-CR (Feb. 16, 2017) (Sudderth, J., joined by Meier, J.; Walker, J., dissents with opinion).

Dissent:  A proper application of the Jackson v. Virginia sufficiency standard of review reveals that any rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Bocanegra intentionally or knowingly caused the penetration of the sexual organ of Amy, a child who was younger than fourteen years of age, by inserting his finger into her sexual organ and also could have found beyond a reasonable doubt against Bocanegra on his medical-care defense.  The unpublished Majority Opinion, however, reaches a different conclusion because it fails to view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and instead crafts its own unique procedure for evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence; fails to recognize that the medical-care defense is a defense of confession and avoidance; and fails to defer to the jury’s resolution of conflicts in the testimony, determinations of credibility, and responsibility to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.