Baylor University Medical Center v. Travelers Ins. Co., 19896

• Decision Date: 29 August 1979
• Docket Number: No. 19896,19896
• Parties: BAYLOR UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, Appellant, v. The TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 501

587 S.W.2d 501

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, Appellant, v. The TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 19896.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Dallas.

Aug. 29, 1979.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 2, 1979.

Catherine A. Gerhauser, Burford & Ryburn, Dallas, for appellant.

Michael L. Parham, Vial, Hamilton, Koch, Tubb, Knox & Stradley, Dallas, for appellee.

Before AKIN, ROBERTSON and CARVER, JJ.

CARVER, Justice.

This appeal concerns the "Hospital Lien Statute," Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5506a (Vernon 1975). Baylor sued Travelers to enforce liens for services to a patient arising from an accident with a driver who was insured by Travelers. Travelers settled with the injured patient, but ignored Baylor's liens. The trial court allowed Baylor's lien for the first hospital admission but found it was discharged by payments from the patient and his insurer. Baylor appeals the denial of relief on the patient's second, third, and fourth admissions on the ground that such admissions were shown to be necessary for treatment of injuries arising from the accident and thus falling within the ambit of article 5506a. Travelers, by crosspoints, complains of the trial court's admission of hospital records, admission of testimony from a filed, but unsigned, deposition, and admission of alleged inadmissible opinion evidence on the reasonableness of the hospital charges. We reverse the judgment that Baylor take nothing and render judgment for Baylor. We hold that since the first hospital admission was within the seventy-two hour period required by the statute and all admissions were necessary due to injuries sustained in the accident, the payment of these hospital charges are secured by the hospital's liens. We further hold that the trial court's admission of evidence about which Travelers complains was correct.

Jewel Chester Denmark was involved in an automobile accident in Rockwall County with John Oliver Culpepper. Denmark was immediately admitted to Baylor Hospital in Dallas County for treatment for the injuries he received in the accident. He was released but later re-admitted on three additional occasions for treatment relating to the same injuries. After each admission, a lien for the accrued charges was perfected by filing a claim in Rockwall County where the accident occurred in accordance with the statute. Meanwhile, Denmark was pursuing a claim for his injuries against Culpepper and Culpepper's insurance carrier, Travelers. While these parties were negotiating a settlement, Baylor informed Travelers of its hospital liens and furnished copies of them to Travelers. Nevertheless, Travelers paid $10,000 to Denmark in settlement without deducting the funds secured by these liens.

The trial court found that Denmark's first admission to Baylor was protected by its lien, but no recovery was given because payments by Denmark and his personal insurance carrier exceeded the bill for the first admission. The trial court concluded that the second, third, and fourth admissions were not protected by the lien because the subsequent admissions of Denmark to Baylor did not occur within seventy-two hours of the accident. Baylor urges the trial court erred in the construction given a proviso in article 5506a § 1:

Section 1. Every association, individual, corporation, or other institution maintaining a hospital or clinic rendering hospital services in the State of Texas shall be entitled to a lien upon any and all rights of action, suits, claims, counter claims, or demands of any persons admitted to any hospital and receiving treatment, care, and maintenance therein, on account of any personal injuries received in any accident as the result of the alleged negligence of any other person or firm or corporation or joint stock association, his, its, or their agent, servant or employee, which any such injured person may or shall have, assert, or maintain against any such other person or firm or corporation or joint stock association for damages on account of such injuries, for the amount of the charges of such hospital or clinic for such treatment, care and maintenance as may have been given to the injured persons. Provided the lien provided for herein shall not exist or attach unless the injured person is received in a hospital within seventy-two (72) hours after the happening of the accident causing the injury, (in which case both the admitting hospital and any hospital to which such injured person may be transferred from the admitting hospital for subsequent treatments of the same injuries for which he was originally admitted shall be entitled to such line.) (Emphasis added, bracketed clause added to the 1933 Act by 1953 amendment).

The undisputed record reflects that Denmark was admitted to Baylor within seventy-two hours of the accident but the nature of his injuries, the variety of the necessary treatment, and the human body's own need to alternately endure repair and recuperation resulted in the successive admissions for treatment "of the same injuries for which he was originally admitted." We find the trial court construed the proviso too narrowly and out of context with the whole legislative act. Article 5506a, as a whole, has been construed by this court in Baylor University Medical Center v. Borders, 581 S.W.2d 731 (Tex.Civ.App. Dallas 1979, no writ) holding: "The legislature's intent in passing the statute was to provide for payment to the hospital in situations such as this. Giving the hospital a separate cause of action to satisfy its lien insures that an accident victim will receive aid and that the hospital will be reimbursed for its services, thus reducing hospital costs." Borders also provides a guide for statutory construction: "(1) the court must be governed by the rule of common sense; (2) the intention of the Legislature in enacting a statute is the statute itself and the aim and object of construction is to ascertain and enforce legislative intent and not to defeat, nullify or thwart it; (3) the court must construe a statute as written and, if possible ascertain its intention from the language used therein and not look for extraneous matters to be used as a basis for reading into a statute an intention not expressed or intended to be expressed therein; (4) if a statute is subject to two interpretations, it should not be given one that would render enforcement impossible; (5) the general rules for the construction of all written instruments apply to the construction of legislative acts." 581 S.W.2d at 733. We are also aided by examining the original act creating article 5506a in 1933. Tex.Gen.Laws, ch. 85, § 5, at 182 which states:

Sec. 5. The fact that it is necessary for persons injured in accidents to be taken immediately to hospitals and to receive care and treatment for their injuries and to be maintained during such care and treatment without giving the hospitals, clinics and institutions an opportunity to investigate the financial worth of the injured party, and that the hospitals of the State of Texas are losing vast sums of money which amounts to the taking of property without compensation therefor, creates an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional Rule which requires bills to be read on three several days be suspended and said Constitutional Rule is hereby suspended, and this Act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.

Further aid is found in an act amending article 5506a in 1953. Tex.Gen.Laws ch. 131, § 4, at 443 which states:

Sec. 4. The fact that it is necessary for persons injured in accidents to be taken immediately to hospitals to receive care and treatment for their injuries and to be maintained during such care and treatment, and the fact that the Present law is inadequate covering the subject matter of this bill, create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional Rule which requires bills to be read on three several days be suspended; and said Rule is hereby suspended, and this Act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted. (Emphasis added).

The overriding purpose of article 5506a, as amended, is to Induce hospitals to receive a patient, injured by the negligence of others, by giving the hospital a lien on the claims, suit or settlement of the patient. The inducement is for "immediate" (within seventy-two hours) reception of the patient. The inducement is co-extensive with the "treatment, care and maintenance as may have been given to injured persons." The inducement extends alike to the "admitting hospital and to any hospital to which injured persons may be transferred." The inducement secures the first administered treatment and "subsequent treatments of the same injuries for which he was originally admitted." In common sense, there can be no difference in lien rights between: (1) initial admittance at one hospital and subsequent treatments at one or more different hospitals, all as the patient requires and the art of medicine dictates for the injuries received in an accident; and (2) initial admittance at one hospital and subsequent treatments At the same hospital, all as the patient requires and the art of medicine dictates for the injuries received in an accident. We hold,...