Linda Yanez Is Too Progressive To Win Statewide

As I discussed below, Linda Yanez would represent a change from the current law because she believes that a liquor store ought to be responsible for the damage caused by a drunk driver who bought beer from the store.

As a further example of what I mean when I say that Justice Yanez is too progressive to win a statewide race in Texas, listen to this interview. Here are some key excerpts:

Dr. Gutiérrez: Surely there has got to be one case that stands out as, as either being problematic or wonderful or.

Judge Yanez: Oh yeah. There is, there are several cases. Well, there is a case that just got argued before the Supreme Court involving whether or not a hospital has a duty to notify. In, in our case it was a spouse, that the spouse had AIDS. And I found that there is. And I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to agree with me.

Dr. Gutiérrez: Duty to inform?

Judge Yanez: To inform. And that's a troubling, you know, a troubling issue. I had a case in which the Supreme Court reversed me in which, and in these medical liability cases in which I found that the child of a man who died of, of… He had cancer in the urinary tract and he had been given a, a medication that was known to cause that kind of, of cancer. Filed a survivors action and because of the way the Medical Liability Act had been written to insulate doctors, you know, they can't be sued. They have to be sued within two years of the last time that they, I, I'm paraphrasing, but they have to sued within two years of the last time that they treated someone, right? And there's no more, no longer a discovery rule in these cases because it doesn't exist in the Medical Liability Act and I think that's a travesty of justice. You know, because like in this case the man couldn't have known his injury, meaning what was going to happen to him from this toxin until he got the cancer, you know. It, it was just common sense to me. And, and the, there was a provision, a statutory provision that a child has until the age of, I'm going to say fourteen, to file an action under, under, under any of these, you know, any of, under any of these, of these medical statutes.

Dr. Gutiérrez: What happened to seventeen plus two or something?

Judge Yanez: Well, it's fourteen, I believe, under these. They have until they are fourteen. And this kid was twelve, so my position was he still had time to file that survivor's action, you know, on behalf of, of, of the father because he was a minor. Anyway, I think the Supreme Court came up with a very tortured opinion in that case. And I think they do that in a lot of cases. I believe that our Supreme Court is so political now that it is, you know, it's tragic for the state that, I mean, that they are so political. To me, it's so clear in the opinions that they write that they have a political agenda. They are supposed to be impartial arbiters of these questions.