In an opinion that shows how conflicted the justices are on the issue of what constitutes a statutorily required expert report in a medical malpractice suit, the Texas Supreme Court recently decided that appellate courts will not grant mandamus of trial court rulings that grant time extensions to plaintiffs to correct deficient expert reports.
In Jan. 23′s In Re: Watkins , the high court upheld an important tenet of the sweeping H.B. 4 tort reform bill the Texas Legislature passed in 2003: If no report is served, a defendant can file an interlocutory appeal, but if the report is merely deficient, then interlocutory appeal is prohibited.
