Rhyme and reason

Don Willett, the newest – and youngest – justice on the Texas Supreme Court, must have had the new movie “Horton Hears a Who” in mind when he wrote a concurring opinion in April 11's Lewis v. Funderburk, a medical-malpractice case that deals with a plaintiff’s submission of a second expert’s report after the report submitted by the plaintiff’s first expert was deemed inadequate. According to Willett’s concurring opinion, an extension can forgive a deficient report, not an absent report. “If reports are missed, not just amiss, courts are remiss if they do not dismiss,” Willett wrote. Now that’s poetic justice.
-- Mary Alice Robbins