# Ealey v. Insurance Co. of North America

> Texas Supreme Court · July 20, 1983 · 660 S.W.2d 50

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668040

## Case

- **Full name:** Jessie Mae EALEY, Petitioner, v. INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA, Respondent
- **Court:** Texas Supreme Court
- **Decided:** July 20, 1983
- **Citations:** 660 S.W.2d 50
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** On rehearing by Ray
- **Judges:** Campbell, Kilgarlin, Ray, Robertson, Spears
- **Cited by:** 34 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668040

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the twenty-day filing deadline in the predecessor to section 410.252(a) was a general statute of limitations with which compliance was required to invoke the trial court=s jurisdiction
- holding that the filing deadline was tolled where the parent company filed suit rather than the subsidiary, but the defendant was not misled or disadvantaged by the mistake
- holding provision setting time period in which to appeal Industrial Accident Board decision to be a general statute of limitation
- noting that the proper party to a workers’ compensation appeal is the insurance carrier, not the employer

## Opinion text

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
RAY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the reasoning and result reached by the majority and agree that the motion for rehearing should be overruled. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that the majority’s opinion is not incompatible with the Court’s holding in Commercial Standard Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Martin, 501 S.W.2d 430 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1973), judgment modified, 505 S.W.2d 799 (Tex.1974), and therefore, I do not believe that Commercial Standard has in any way been overruled.
In Commercial Standard, a worker’s compensation claimant filed an appeal against two insurance carriers, one of which had been a party to the proceedings before the Industrial Accident Board and one of which had not. The court of appeals held simply that the trial court had no jurisdiction over the insurance carrier that had not been a party before the Industrial Accident Board and had had no award made against it in favor of the claimant. The decision in Commercial Standard was obviously compelled by elementary principles and had nothing to do with limitations or considerations of fair notice.
The case at bar is factually quite different, however, and has much to do with limitations and fair notice, concepts that simply were not relevant to the resolution of Commercial Standard. The holding in the present case is that the purposes of article 8307, section 5, TEX.REV.CIV. STAT.ANN., are fulfilled when a party’s appeal of an Industrial Accident Board decision is timely filed and gives fair notice of that appeal' to the opposing party. As long as no one is misled or placed at a disadvantage, there is no practical or logical reason why the appealing party cannot go forward with his appeal. There is certainly nothing incompatible or inconsistent between that principle and the holding in Commercial Standard.
The case of Garcia v. Employers Casualty Company, 519 S.W.2d 685 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1975, writ ref’d n.r.e.), on the other hand, is another matter. Unlike Commercial Standard, Garcia was a case involving limitations and considerations of fair *54 notice. In that case, a worker’s compensation claimant filed an appeal within the limitations period, but against the wrong insurance carrier; and although the right insurance carrier had the same offices, officers, and telephone numbers as the wrong insurance carrier (so that there was very probably fair notice given to all parties), the court of appeals held that the requirements of article 8307, section 5 had not been met with respect to the right carrier. It is difficult to see how that holding can be reconciled with the majority holding in the present case, and therefore, I believe Garcia is overruled.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9668040. Public record. Not legal advice.