AUSTIN - On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court addressed two questions certified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, finding that the statute of limitations has not run out in litigation against Boeing over the alleged hearing loss of two flight attendants.
Lee Marvin Sanders and Matthew Sodrok both work as flight attendants. They allege they were injured when a smoke detector on a flight they were working malfunctioned and emitted an alarm so loud it burst their eardrums, causing permanent hearing loss.
According to the high court’s opinion, a month after the case was removed to federal court, Boeing moved to dismiss the action based on the two-year statute of limitations. A Houston district court granted the motion and dismissed the suit, holding Section 16.064 did not suspend the running of limitations because a Dallas district court “was not deemed a ‘wrong court’ pursuant to the requirements of section 16.064.”
The Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code requires claimants to bring suit by particular deadlines but also provides exceptions, such as Section 16.064, which suspends the running of the applicable statute of limitations for the period from the date of filing an action in a trial court until the date of a second filing of the same action in a different court.
The Fifth Circuit’s questions pertained to Section 16.064 and asked:
- First, does the section apply when the prior court dismissed the action because of lack of jurisdiction but the court would have had jurisdiction if the claimants had properly pleaded the jurisdictional facts?
- And second, did these claimants file the subsequent action within sixty days after the dismissal became final?
“We answer Yes to both questions,” the opinion states. “Applying the statute’s plain language, we conclude Section 16.064(a) applies in this case because (1) even if the prior court could have had jurisdiction, it nevertheless dismissed the action “because of lack of jurisdiction,” and (2) the claimants filed this action within sixty days after they exhausted their appeal from the dismissal and the appellate court’s power to alter the judgment ended, which is when the dismissal became ‘final.’”
No. 23-0388