Wheeler v. Methodist Hosp.,
No. 01-98-00922 (Tex. App. Dec. 19, 2002)

A physician entered into a practice improvement plan that required him to obtain a consultation from another physician before he could discharge any patients upon whom he had performed a procedure. The physician violated the requirement and, following a telephone conversation with the acting chief of staff, the physician resigned. The hospital filed a report with the National Practitioner Data Bank ("NPDB") reporting the resignation, but also stating that he had been suspended, which the physician disputed. The physician sued the hospital for defamation. The Texas Court of Appeals held that the physician's defamation claim, based on the initial report to the NPDB, was barred by the one-year statute of limitations, but refused to dismiss the physician's claim (and allowed some discovery), based on two subsequent republications of the report by the NPDB to different requesting entities, each of which fell within one year of the physician filing his lawsuit. The court allowed discovery on whether the report was false.