FORT WORTH, Texas _ An appeals court has preserved the status quo in the baby Tinslee Lewis case, ensuring that the child will remain on life support until a judge can hear arguments on the merits of the Texas Advance Directives Act or the appeals court decision is superseded by a higher court.
The ruling Friday cames the day after attorneys representing the Lewis family withdrew a motion asking the court to allow new doctors to intervene in the case of the child, who was born with a rare heart defect called an Ebstein anomaly.
The appeal court's majority opinion, written by Judge Wade Birdwell, said Tinslee's mother has presented a bona fide complaint that Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, in invoking and following the committee review process in an effort to end life support, failed to provide the mother adequate procedural due process for the individual interests at stake. Therefore, the mother has shown that she has a probable right to relief on her claim, the opinion said.
"We reverse the trial court's denial of Mother's application for a temporary injunction, and we remand this case to the trial court to render an order granting the requested temporary injunction pending a final trial on the merits consistent with this opinion," Birdwell wrote. "Our previously issued stay order remains in effect until the trial court renders such an order complying with this court's judgment or until superseded by a higher court."
The hospital has maintained that continuing to treat Lewis is causing her unnecessary pain and suffering, and is putting an emotional strain on the staff who have to attend to her.
The hospital also maintains that the child's condition is terminal and cannot be improved upon and that ethical considerations dictate that the heroic measures being used to keep her alive should cease, according to court documents.
Officials with Texas Right to Life, an advocacy group supporting the Lewis family, are hopeful that the ruling will eventually bring the Texas Advance Directives Act to an end or at minimum, a rewrite.
"I am so thankful the court of appeals sees the injustice of the 10-day law and will allow me to fight for my daughter," Trinity Lewis, Tinslee Lewis' mother, said in a news release.
According to the Texas Right to Life statement, the appeals court opinion cites the probability that the Texas Advance Directives Act (also known as the 10-Day Rule) will be declared unconstitutional after a full trial.
"Baby Tinslee's temporary injunction will prevent Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth from pulling the plug on the 17-month-old until a full trial is held that will officially uphold or strike down the 10-Day Rule," the statement says. "The Second Court of Appeals ordered the case to return to the lower court for final trial on the merits consistent with this opinion. The date of the trial has not yet been decided by the 48th District Court.
"Texas Right to Life praises God that the court granted more time for Baby Tinslee and for every other patient victimized by the 10-Day Rule. Over the last several months, Texas Right to Life has seen more and more hospitals trying to force the 10-Day Rule on innocent Texans. The 10-Day Rule has robbed countless patients of their Right to Life and right to due process. We pray the court will strike down the deadly 10-Day Rule in the full trial."
At the heart of the dispute is Texas' 10-day rule, which says hospitals can end life-sustaining treatments for patients 10 days after a committee decision even if the family objects. Cook Children's evoked the rule in late October in the case of Lewis, until a judge granted a motion to halt the hospital from taking her off life support until at least Nov. 22.
That started months of back-and-forth legal motions and hearings. At a hearing in February, family members said Tinslee has proven the hospital wrong by continuing to fight, and even improve. Cook wasn't allowed to comment in court but its attorney, Amy Warr, said physicians should have a right to refuse care for a patient if that care "causes suffering without medical benefit."
Texas Right to Life, the anti-abortion political organization, said in the release that the notion that Lewis' case is hopeless is false and placing a countdown on patients cuts their lives short.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Lee Gabriel argues that the majority opinion is an overreach that answered questions attorneys did not ask in concluding that Cook Children's was acting in a state capacity when it was making a private decision based on medical concerns of a terminally ill child.
The court's majority opinion is so broad and goes so far beyond the question asked _ were the mother's due process rights violated _ that, "little, if anything, is left for the trial court to determine," Gabriel writes.
The opinion is so broad that it is akin to an advisory opinion, weighing in on the child's medical condition and social issues far beyond the scope of the questions the appeals court was asked to consider, according to Gabriel's dissent.
Gabriel argues that the majority of the court has taken the issue presented before it and expanded the question into the issue that they want to address.
But "a temporary injunction hearing is not a substitute for a trial on the merits, nor does it serve the same purpose," Gabriel says in her dissent. The conclusions reached by the majority of the appeals court are issues that should be further developed and decided by a trial court, according to Gabriel.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton supported the decision by the majority of the Second Court of Appeals.
"I wholeheartedly commend the court for protecting this baby girl's life and allowing her family members to fight for their daughter. Life is the first constitutionally protected interest, and this innocent baby girl must be afforded the rights she deserves," Paxton said in a statement. "Patients must be heard and justly represented when it comes to determining their medical treatment, especially when their lives are at risk."
