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Wichita Falls State Hospital v. Taylor3/6/2003
Argued on April 3, 2002
This is an interlocutory appeal in a wrongful-death lawsuit against Wichita Falls State Hospital for violations of the "patient's bill of rights," which is codified at chapter 321 of the Texas Health and Safety Code. We must determine whether the Legislature intended to waive the State's sovereign immunity by enacting section 321.003 of the Code. We conclude that it did not. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and dismiss Taylor's claims for want of jurisdiction.
I. Background
Terry Lynn Taylor was involuntarily committed to Wichita Falls State Hospital for severe mental illness. Taylor was discharged four days later, after being treated by Dr. Peter Fadow, a psychiatrist at the Hospital. Taylor returned home and committed suicide that same day. Taylor's wife, Deborah Taylor, sued the Hospital and Dr. Fadow under Texas Health and Safety Code section 321.003, asserting claims for wrongful death and survival. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 71.002, .021. She alleged that Taylor's death was proximately caused by the negligence of the doctor and Hospital in failing to properly diagnose and treat his mental illness, and that the defendants' acts and omissions violated the patient's bill of rights. See 25 Tex. Admin. Code §§ 133.42, 404.154-.159.
The Hospital moved to dismiss for want of jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity. In her response, Deborah Taylor argued that the Legislature unambiguously waived the Hospital's immunity by enacting Texas Health and Safety Code section 321.003, which provides that a person who has been harmed by a violation of the patient's bill of rights "may sue" for damages. The trial court denied the Hospital's jurisdictional plea and the Hospital appealed. A divided court of appeals affirmed, holding that the Legislature clearly and unambiguously waived immunity from suit against state mental health facilities for violations of the patient's bill of rights. 48 S.W.3d 782. We granted the Hospital's petition for review to consider this issue of first impression.
II. Discussion
A. Sovereign Immunity
In 1847, this Court held that "no State can be sued in her own courts without her consent, and then only in the manner indicated by that consent." Hosner v. De Young, 1 Tex. 764, 769 (1847). The Court did not cite the origin of that declaration, but it appears to be rooted in an early understanding of sovereignty:
It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union. The Federalist No. 81, at 487 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossitor ed., 1961) (dismissing fears that adopting the new Constitution would abrogate states' sovereign immunity).
Although sometimes associated in the United States with the feudal fiction that "the King can do no wrong," sovereign immunity "is an established principle of jurisprudence in all civilized nations." Beers v. Arkansas, 61 U.S. 527, 529 (1857).
Most sovereigns have long since abandoned the fiction that governments and their officials can "do no wrong." To varying degrees, states and the federal government have voluntarily relinquished the privilege of absolute immunity by waiving immunity in certain contexts. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b); Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.021. Invariably, however, they have retained a significant measure of immunity to protect the public treasury. See Fed. Sign v. Tex. S. Univ., 951 S.W.2d 401, 417
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