Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Gallit Fischman, proceeding pro se, sued Epic Systems Corporation under Texas law after her father died following treatment at a medical facility that used Epic’s electronic health record system. She alleged that defects in the system prevented clinicians from seeing accurate medication information needed to identify and treat his condition.
Fischman alleged that Epic retained exclusive, ongoing control over the system’s database structure, medication-record design, reporting frameworks, and logic. Her amended complaint asserted wrongful death, negligence, products liability based on defective design, negligent misrepresentation, and gross negligence. Epic moved to dismiss all claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
The Court’s Holding
The court denied dismissal of the wrongful-death, negligence, and design-defect claims. Construing the pro se complaint liberally, it held that Fischman plausibly alleged Epic owed her father a duty of reasonable care because Epic allegedly controlled software architecture affecting patient care and could foresee that inaccurate medication information might cause serious or fatal harm. The allegations also plausibly supported proximate causation despite the intervening role of treating physicians.
Making an Erie prediction under unsettled Texas law, the court also concluded that Epic’s EHR platform could qualify as a “product” under Texas products-liability law at the pleading stage. Fischman sufficiently identified alleged defects, safer alternative designs, and producing causation. The court dismissed negligent misrepresentation because the complaint did not plausibly allege that Epic supplied information for Fischman’s or her father’s guidance in a business transaction, justifiable reliance, or resulting pecuniary loss. It dismissed gross negligence because Fischman did not identify an agent or vice principal whose conduct could establish Epic’s corporate liability. Both dismissed claims could be repleaded within 28 days.
Key Takeaways
- A healthcare-software vendor may owe patients a Texas-law duty of reasonable care when it allegedly retains control over system architecture and patient harm from defects is foreseeable.
- The court predicted that an EHR platform can constitute a “product” under Texas products-liability law when it functions as a highly technical tool distributed and licensed similarly to tangible products.
- The wrongful-death, negligence, and design-defect claims survived, while negligent misrepresentation and gross negligence were dismissed with leave to amend.
Why It Matters
The decision permits direct tort claims against an EHR developer to proceed beyond the pleading stage based on alleged software architecture defects, rather than treating clinicians’ independent judgment or the vendor’s third-party status as categorical barriers to liability.
The ruling is preliminary and rests on the complaint’s allegations, not an evidentiary record. The court expressly noted that it could revisit the existence of a duty if later-developed facts showed Epic lacked the alleged control or if Texas law subsequently provided different guidance.