Methodist Dallas at Southlake Is Stonewalling Discovery in a Case Involving a Child’s Sepsis Trauma

While Methodist Southlake Medical Center promotes a public image of patient safety and transparency, behind closed doors, they are doing everything they can to withhold critical documents about the care my 11-year-old son received just before being admitted to the ICU in septic shock.

This is not a legal gray area. This is not a miscommunication.

This is a deliberate refusal to cooperate in discovery, in an active lawsuit involving a child, a confirmed peer-reviewed care failure, and a hospital that should have responded with honesty from day one.

The Background They Don’t Want You to Know

In December 2023, my son arrived at Methodist Southlake’s emergency department with abnormal vitals, vomiting, and fever. He was discharged in under two hours. There was no full sepsis evaluation, no antibiotics given, and no reassessment documented. We were told he was fine. We were never told about the labs, EKG and vitals all being abnormal.

Two days later, he was in the pediatric ICU with septic shock, on vasopressors, fighting for his life. He remained hospitalized for over a month. He now lives with long-term medical damage that no family should have to endure. Not to mention the financial and emotional damage.

A Federal Investigation Confirmed Failure

After we demanded answers, a federal EMTALA investigation was conducted. In April 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Statement of Deficiencies (Form 2567), which included the hospital’s own internal peer review findings:

“Sepsis was not recognized or treated. The patient was inappropriately discharged.”

That line was written in response to Methodist Southlake’s own Medical Director discussing the peer review he had conducted. The hospital admitted, to the investigator, that the care was unsafe.

So, you would think they would cooperate. That they would release the relevant documents, maybe even try to make it right.

They haven’t.

What We Have Asked For and What They Have Refused to Produce

As part of formal discovery, our legal team requested the kinds of records any family in this situation would expect to see:

• The hospital’s sepsis protocols

• The peer review worksheet referenced in the CMS report

• Internal communications about the incident

• Training materials and reassessment procedures

• Audit logs showing who accessed the record and when (which are part of our HIPAA rights and have been requested repeatedly)

• Contracts and agency documentation for the providers involved

• Occurrence reports or internal reviews

  
  

They refused. Every single time.

Except? They sent us a screenshot of their website where you could not even see pictures, instead of actual records.

What Methodist Has Done Instead.

❌ Denied possession of documents their own leadership submitted to CMS

❌ Claimed multiple requests were “overly broad” or “unduly burdensome”

❌ Refused to confirm who was responsible for my son’s care

❌ Ignored multiple document categories that go directly to safety protocol failures

This Isn’t Legal Defense. This Is a Wall.

This is not legal positioning, it’s a wall of silence built around a child’s medical trauma.

They can claim “peer review privilege” all they want, but even basic documents like hospital protocols, audit logs, training records, and internal communications are being withheld, without explanation, and without transparency.

They have also refused to provide an audit log,  unless we request them in writing. And we have, multiple times.

Let that sink in: Methodist Dallas at Southlake is telling the court they’re withholding documents unless we drag them, point by point, into a courtroom to force it. Patients first, right?

What Are They Trying to Hide?

What’s more disturbing?

• That the hospital admitted failure and still kept the public in the dark, while partnering with a local school to fast-track students into their ER?

• Or that they now refuse to release the documents that would show how this happened, documents that could help prevent it from happening again?

  
  

They insist they did nothing wrong.

They deny responsibility.

But they also refuse to show us the very evidence that would prove it either way.

This Feels Like a Test

Let me be honest. This does not feel like medicine anymore.

If it were, they would have shown us the truth by now.

This feels like a test. Of how much I can take.

Of how long our family will fight.

Of how much the community will tolerate when a hospital buries the facts. I believe that they have gotten away with this before, so they are trying it again.

It feels like they are betting that we will eventually just go away and continue to pay to clean up their mess.

The Public Sees the Grade. We See the Reality.

While Methodist Southlake celebrates its Leapfrog “A” safety grade, we’re living the side of the system most people never see and pray they never do. The side where a child is harmed, and a family is forced to fight for every piece of information just to understand why.

And the hospital’s slogan?

“Trust. Methodist.”

Final Thoughts

Hospitals often claim they “put patients first.” But when it matters most, when a child is harmed, when federal documents confirm internal failures, and when a family is asking for truth, what they do matters more than what they say.

Right now, Methodist Dallas at Southlake is doing everything it can to prevent us from seeing the full picture or any part of the picture. Honestly, if they truly believed they did nothing wrong, then why hide?

And that reality speaks louder than any safety grade ever will.

Part of his labs from that day. I am no doctor.......