## Facts

- A newborn, Courtnie Williamson, developed severe acidosis and respiratory distress shortly after birth at Laird Memorial Hospital.
- The attending physician called Dr. Karen Roberts, the hospital’s consulting pediatrician; she arrived about forty-five minutes later and began treatment.
- Courtnie was placed on a pediatric ventilator that was not functioning properly, and she did not receive needed oxygen for several minutes.
- As Courtnie’s acidosis worsened, a colleague suggested sodium bicarbonate; Roberts delayed administration for roughly two hours while consulting a neonatologist.
- Courtnie improved and was transferred, but she suffered severe permanent brain damage and required a permanent shunt.
- Courtnie’s parents sued Roberts, other physicians, and the hospital; some defendants settled, and the claims against Roberts and another physician proceeded to trial.
- The jury found Roberts negligent and a proximate cause of Courtnie’s injuries, awarding damages to Courtnie and damages to the parents, including parental loss-of-consortium; the trial court also split guardian ad litem fees equally between Roberts and the parents.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas common law recognizes a parent’s cause of action for loss of consortium arising from a child’s nonfatal injury.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting contested expert testimony.
3. Whether prior settlements required additional settlement credits or reductions in the judgment against Roberts under proportionate-responsibility principles.
4. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by splitting guardian ad litem fees between Roberts and the parents.

## Decision

- The court held Texas does not recognize a common-law cause of action for parental loss of consortium based on a child’s nonfatal injury and rendered judgment eliminating that recovery.
- The court otherwise agreed with the court of appeals’ disposition on liability and damages unrelated to filial consortium, including the evidentiary and settlement-credit rulings.
- The court reinstated the trial court’s allocation of guardian ad litem fees, holding the equal split was within the trial court’s discretion.
- Disposition: affirmed in part, reversed in part, and rendered judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Texas common law does not permit parents to recover loss-of-filial-consortium damages when a child is seriously but nonfatally injured.
- Consortium is a judicially created remedy expanded cautiously; policy considerations may justify limiting further expansion.
- In deciding whether to recognize a new common-law cause of action, courts may weigh exposure to multiplied claims, risk of duplicative nonpecuniary recovery, administrability of limiting principles, and the legislature’s comparative capacity to address broad economic and institutional effects.
- Trial courts have broad discretion to admit expert testimony when challenges primarily concern weight and credibility rather than threshold admissibility.
- Allocation of guardian ad litem fees as taxable costs is committed to the trial court’s discretion absent a showing of abuse.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court refused to extend consortium doctrine to allow parents to recover for loss of companionship and society from a child’s nonfatal injury, vacated the parents’ filial-consortium award, and otherwise left intact the malpractice verdict while restoring the trial court’s equal division of guardian ad litem fees.


Roberts v. Williamson, 111 S.W.3d 113 (Tex. 2003)