Laura Patricia Canavati De Checa Et Al. v. Diagnostic Center Hospital

This case comes to us on certified questions from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The questions require interpretation of the notice and limitations provisions of the Texas Medical Liability and Insurance Improvement Act (the Act). Specifically, we are asked: 1) whether notice of a health care liability claim to one health care provider tolls the statute of limitations for seventy-five days for all health care providers against whom a claim is timely asserted, 2) whether a claim is barred when notice is served within two years and seventy-five days but suit is not filed for sixty days, placing the commencement of litigation outside the extended limitations period, 3) whether each health care provider sued is entitled to a separate sixty-day presuit negotiation period, and 4) whether a claim may be abated, due to the failure to provide timely notice, beyond the two year and seventy-five day extended limitations period. For the following reasons, we answer each of these questions in the affirmative.