Ex Parte Gerald Hodge, M.d. (in Re David Tucker, Jr., as Administrator Ad Litem for the Estate of Gertha R. Tucker…

Summary

The court held that the medical-malpractice claims accrued when the surgical clamp was left in the patient's body, making the claims filed more than four years after the surgery barred by the statutory period of repose. Because the decedent lacked a viable medical-malpractice claim at death, the estate could not maintain the related wrongful-death claim. The court also held that mandamus was appropriate because the defendants had a clear legal right to dismissal and neither a permissive interlocutory appeal nor a later appeal provided an adequate remedy. Chief Justice Moore, dissenting, would have denied mandamus, while Justices Murdock and Shaw specially concurred in support of the narrow exception applied here.