Terms Used In Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 74 > Subchapter B - Notice and Pleadings

• Claimant: means a person, including a decedent's estate, seeking or who has sought recovery of damages in a health care liability claim. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Court: means any federal or state court. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Health care: means any act or treatment performed or furnished, or that should have been performed or furnished, by any health care provider for, to, or on behalf of a patient during the patient's medical care, treatment, or confinement. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Health care liability claim: means a cause of action against a health care provider or physician for treatment, lack of treatment, or other claimed departure from accepted standards of medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care, which proximately results in injury to or death of a claimant, whether the claimant's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Health care provider: means any person, partnership, professional association, corporation, facility, or institution duly licensed, certified, registered, or chartered by the State of Texas to provide health care, including:
  (i) a registered nurse;
  (ii) a dentist;
  (iii) a podiatrist;
  (iv) a pharmacist;
  (v) a chiropractor;
  (vi) an optometrist;
  (vii) a health care institution; or
  (viii) a health care collaborative certified under Chapter 848, Insurance Code. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• in writing: includes any representation of words, letters, or figures, whether by writing, printing, or other means. See Texas Government Code 312.011
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Medical care: means any act defined as practicing medicine under § 151. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Physician: means :
  (A) an individual licensed to practice medicine in this state;
  (B) a professional association organized under the Texas Professional Association Act (Article 1528f, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes) by an individual physician or group of physicians;
  (C) a partnership or limited liability partnership formed by a group of physicians;
  (D) a nonprofit health corporation certified under § 162. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Pleadings: Written statements of the parties in a civil case of their positions. In the federal courts, the principal pleadings are the complaint and the answer.
• Representative: means the spouse, parent, guardian, trustee, authorized attorney, or other authorized legal agent of the patient or claimant. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Statute of limitations: A law that sets the time within which parties must take action to enforce their rights.
• sworn: includes affirm or affirmed. See Texas Government Code 312.011
• Voir dire: The process by which judges and lawyers select a petit jury from among those eligible to serve, by questioning them to determine knowledge of the facts of the case and a willingness to decide the case only on the evidence presented in court. "Voir dire" is a phrase meaning "to speak the truth."