A Texas appeals court on Thursday upheld the dismissal of a certified nursing assistant’s workers compensation retaliation and negligence claims because she waited more than a month to correct an improperly formatted electronic filing.
In Benavidez v. Cascade-Nueces Health Services Ltd. and Cimarron Place Health & Rehabilitation Center, the court ruled that Concepcion Benavidez forfeited the original filing date of her lawsuit by failing to meet a court clerk’s deadline for correcting and resubmitting her petition.
Ms. Benavidez alleged she was injured in April 2022 when she collided with a resident-operated wheelchair during a power outage while working at Cimarron Place Health & Rehabilitation Center. She later sued the facility and its owner, alleging negligence, gross negligence, premises liability, intentional infliction of emotional distress and retaliation for seeking workers compensation benefits.
She electronically submitted her petition April 9, 2024, two days before what she acknowledged was the expiration of the applicable two-year limitations period.
The Nueces County district clerk returned the filing because the service request was incomplete and documents had been improperly combined. After a second unsuccessful filing, the clerk warned that Ms. Benavidez had seven days, until April 18, to submit a corrected version and retain the April 9 filing date.
She did not resubmit the petition until May 20.
The appellate court said Texas’ electronic filing rules generally treat a document as filed when it is transmitted to an electronic filing service provider. However, a party must comply with a clerk’s deadline for correcting a nonconforming filing to retain the original date.
Because Ms. Benavidez missed that deadline, the earliest effective filing date was May 20, after the limitations period had expired, the court said.
The court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of all claims. It did not address the employers’ alternative argument that the retaliation claim failed because they did not subscribe to the Texas workers compensation system.