## Facts

- In March 1994, fifteen-year-old Christopher Medina was living at a residential mental-health treatment center in Texas.
- Medina fell on his head at the facility and injured his neck.
- Staff took Medina to the emergency room, where Dr. H. Lopez-Roman treated him.
- Medina complained of dizziness, neck pain, and an inability to move his arms.
- Dr. Lopez-Roman examined Medina, ordered cervical-spine X-rays and laboratory tests, and reviewed the X-rays himself because a radiologist was not available.
- Medina’s reported symptoms and observed responses fluctuated during the visit.
- Dr. Lopez-Roman spoke by telephone with Medina’s psychiatrist, Dr. Stuart Crane, about Medina’s mental-health history and whether he might be expressing physical symptoms from emotional causes.
- Dr. Lopez-Roman concluded Medina’s presentation was psychosomatic rather than a spinal-cord injury and discharged him from the emergency room.
- The next day Medina was taken to another hospital, diagnosed with a broken neck, underwent surgery to fuse cervical vertebrae, and began rehabilitation.
- Medina turned eighteen on April 3, 1996.
- Medina sent statutory presuit notices to the doctors and, on April 3, 1998, filed suit against Dr. Lopez-Roman and Dr. Crane asserting claims under Texas’s medical-liability statute (former article 4590i) and additional non-4590i claims.
- Although Medina requested issuance and service of citation when he filed, Dr. Lopez-Roman was not served until October 6, 1998.
- The doctors moved for summary judgment, asserting the two-year limitations period for healthcare-liability claims had expired before Medina filed, and alternatively that service was not pursued with due diligence.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the doctors on the article 4590i claims and later granted summary judgment disposing of the remaining non-4590i claims; Medina appealed both rulings.

## Issues

1. Under Texas time-computation rules, when minority tolling ends on the plaintiff’s eighteenth birthday, does the two-year limitations period expire on the second anniversary date (making a suit filed on that date timely) or the day before?
2. Did the doctors conclusively establish, as a matter of law, that Medina’s non-article 4590i claims were time-barred?
3. Did the summary-judgment record conclusively prove Medina failed to use due diligence in serving Dr. Lopez-Roman after timely filing suit, so that limitations still barred the claims?

## Decision

- The court of appeals reversed the summary judgments and remanded.
- Applying Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 4, the court held the day limitations began to run (Medina’s eighteenth birthday) is excluded from the calculation and the last day is included; therefore the two-year period ran through April 3, 1998, and Medina’s April 3, 1998 filing was timely.
- Because the article 4590i limitations ruling was incorrect, summary judgment on the healthcare-liability claims could not stand on that ground.
- As to the non-article 4590i claims, the doctors did not conclusively show all such claims were barred by limitations on the summary-judgment record, so the judgment disposing of those claims was also reversed.
- The court held the record raised fact questions on whether Medina exercised due diligence in obtaining service on Dr. Lopez-Roman after filing; those fact questions prevented summary judgment based on a service-delay limitations theory.

## Legal Principles

- Texas’s medical-liability limitations period (former Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. art. 4590i, § 10.01) is two years, and when the claimant is a minor, limitations is tolled until the claimant reaches majority.
- Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 4 governs time computation for limitations: exclude the day of the act or event that starts the period and include the last day of the period.
- When Rule 4 applies, a limitations period that begins on a given calendar date generally runs through the corresponding anniversary date, not the day before.
- A defendant seeking summary judgment on limitations must conclusively prove the claim is time-barred, including correct calculation of the limitations deadline.
- Even if a petition is filed within limitations, a plaintiff must exercise due diligence in serving the defendant; whether diligence was used is usually a fact question unless the record shows lack of diligence as a matter of law.
- Summary judgment cannot stand when the evidence permits reasonable disagreement on a material point such as the limitations deadline or diligence in service.

## Conclusion

Medina, injured as a minor after an alleged misdiagnosis, filed suit on the second anniversary of his eighteenth birthday. The court held that, under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 4, the limitations period ran through that anniversary date, making the filing timely, and it further held the defendants failed to conclusively establish that Medina’s other claims were time-barred or that he lacked due diligence in serving Dr. Lopez-Roman. The court reversed the trial court’s summary judgments and remanded for further proceedings.


Medina v. Lopez-Roman, 49 S.W.3d 393 (2000)