The Texas Medical Board is seeking sanctions against Dr. Mary Talley Bowden from the State Office of Administrative Hearings for filing too many Texas Public Information Act requests. However, their claim has some glaring holes.

In what appears to be a misremembered recounting of events, the motion said, “Respondent’s improper use in this legal proceeding of Board members’ emails and text messages – irrelevant information obtained outside of the discovery process and attempting to imbue bias where none exists – is exactly why protections are in place to prohibit parties from using the PIA to engage in extracurricular discovery.”

The texts and many emails this statement allegedly refers to were obtained not by Bowden but by The Dallas Express.

The discovery process mentioned in the filing relates to a case the Texas Medical Board (TMB) filed against Bowden in 2023. The case focuses on whether Bowden had the right to attempt to treat a COVID-19-infected, ailing Fort Worth Sheriff’s Deputy with Ivermectin at his wife’s pleadings in 2021.

DX obtained text messages under the Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) in the summer of 2024 that showed one board member cutting off another member who presided over the early stages of Bowden’s case as she appeared ready to share negative personal sentiments about the doctor.

The outlet contacted the relevant parties for comment at the time, but they did not respond by the time of publication. The court filing is the first acknowledgment that any board member or official acting on behalf of the Board has made on those text messages.

DX also obtained numerous emails showing that some TMB members had been watching Bowden since she first gained national attention for criticizing vaccine mandates in 2021.

Later, Bowden gave DX a smaller set of emails from the Board that she obtained through TPIA that corroborated the outlet’s findings.

“The Honorable ALJ [administrative law judge] has the authority to impose appropriate sanctions against a party or its representative for abuse of the discovery process in seeking, making, or resisting discovery or failing to obey an order of the Court [Citation omitted],” the Board’s attorney wrote in a motion for protection and sanctions on January 8, 2024. “Sanctions include, but are not limited to, disallowing further discovery by the offending party, charging all or part of the expenses of discovery against the offending party, refusing to allow the offending party to support or oppose a claim, prohibiting a party from introducing designated matters into the record as well as striking pleadings or testimony in whole or in part.”

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The legal team claimed that Bowden had filed 117 TPIA requests and sought protection from filing any further requests from the Houston ENT. The lawyers argued that this was being used to supplement the legal discovery process and should be halted.

A catalog of requests attached to the end of the document showed that Bowden typically requested information such as the qualifications of experts the Board intends to use against her and how much they are being paid.

Bowden hit back on X.

Bowden was referencing the sudden departure of the TMB medical director, Dr. Robert Bredt.

In late December 2024, Bredt was set to be called as an expert witness against Bowden. The Board’s filings with the State Office of Administrative Hearings attached the physician’s résumé, which revealed he had a long history as a laboratory director at Planned Parenthood.

State Reps. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) and Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) were incensed by this revelation and publicly demanded that the board fire Bredt, The Dallas Express reported.

Bredt submitted his retirement paperwork on January 7, which was also his last day of work, the Texas Tribune reported the following day.

Citizens are entitled by law to submit a TPIA request under Section 552 of the state code. The law is the state equivalent of the better-known federal Freedom of Information Act, and it is one of the primary tools citizens use to obtain the records that their tax dollars pay to create.

According to the Texas Attorney General, this law exists because of “the principle that government is the servant and not the master of the people.”

There is no statutory cap on how many requests citizens can file.

Section 522.27 does authorize state agencies to throttle requests from “Vexatious requestors.” However, this exception is understood to apply to requesters who file numerous requests purely to gum up the gears of government or author such broad requests that it would require the agency to supply every document in its possession, for example. This power to throttle is seldom invoked and requires a determination from the State Attorney General. TMB’s legal counsel did not mention that it had approached the attorney general in its filings.

This case was not the only brush-up between the Board and DX, nor was it the only possible reference to the outlet in the TMB’s motion. The Board lawyers also took aim at “third parties” that it claimed could obtain records for Bowden on the eve of DX receiving records about Bowden’s contentious audit.