§ 74.251.Statute of Limitations on Health Care Liability Claims

The deadline for a Texas medical claim, and it is stricter than the general personal injury rule in two ways.

Notwithstanding any other law, no health care liability claim may be commenced unless filed within two years from: the occurrence of the breach or tort; the date the medical or health care treatment that is the subject of the claim is completed; or the date the hospitalization for which the claim is made is completed.

Three measuring points, and the claimant does not choose freely among them. Where the date of the negligent act is ascertainable, that is the date. The treatment and hospitalization alternatives exist for a course of care in which no single act can be isolated.

The discovery rule is conspicuously absent. The period runs from the act or the treatment, not from when the patient learned of the injury — which is the sharpest departure from the ordinary two-year rule.

Minors are treated unusually. Children under 12 have until their 14th birthday to file. Except as so provided, the section applies to all persons regardless of minority or other legal disability — so a 13-year-old, and an adult under a disability, get the plain two years.

Subsection (b) is a statute of repose: a claim must be brought not later than 10 years after the date of the act or omission, and the subsection says it is intended as a statute of repose so that all claims must be brought within 10 years or they are time barred.

A repose period runs from the defendant's conduct and can expire before a claim is even discoverable. It is an outer boundary that nothing extends.

Note that pre-suit notice tolls limitations for 75 days, which is often what makes a claim filed near the deadline viable.