LEONDRA LEACH v. THE CITY OF TYLER

Houston, Texas – Personal Injury lawyer represented Plaintiff who sued Defendant on a Texas Tort Claims Act theory alleging that that an improperly secured piece of lumber flew off a truck and struck him in the head.

In this personal-injury case arising under the Texas Tort Claims

Act, Leondra Leach alleged that an improperly secured piece of lumber

flew off a truck owned by the City of Tyler and struck him in the head.

The City contended that the trial court had no jurisdiction because

Leach had failed to provide the City with timely notice of his claim. The

trial court agreed and granted summary judgment in favor of the City;

the court of appeals affirmed. We hold that the City had sufficient notice

and that the trial court's jurisdiction was secure. We therefore reverse

the judgment below and remand to the trial court.

Leach was allegedly injured when he was driving a truck for his

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employer, Ameri-Tex Services. Ameri-Tex's truck also sustained

damage to its side-mirror. Under Texas law, a governmental entity

must "receive notice of a claim against it” within six months of the

alleged injury. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 101.101(a). City charters

and ordinances sometimes include separate notice requirements, which

the Legislature has "ratified and approved.” Id. § 101.101(b). The City

of Tyler's charter requires notice of tort claims within thirty days. See

TYLER, TEX., CHARTER, art. IX § 79 (1990). The City has promulgated a

"Claims Notice” form that a claimant may submit to comply with the

city charter's requirement. Ameri-Tex completed and filed that form

seven days after the incident. Ameri-Tex told Leach that it would file a

single notice both for itself and for Leach, so Leach himself filed nothing

with the City during the thirty-day period that the city charter allows.

The dispute before us is whether the notice that the City received

is sufficient, both under Section 101.101(a) and the city charter, to

preserve Leach's right to pursue his tort claim. The court of appeals

concluded that the notice provided in the form that Ameri-Tex filed was

inadequate under Section 101.101(a) and did not separately examine

whether the notice met the city charter's requirements. __ S.W.3d __,

2021 WL 2371417, at *2–4 (Tex. App.—Tyler June 9, 2021). For two

reasons, however, the court of appeals' analysis of Section 101.101(a)

was erroneous.

First, Section 101.101(a) requires only that a notice be provided

within six months of the incident and "reasonably describe: (1) the

damage or injury claimed; (2) the time and place of the incident; and

(3) the incident.” TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 101.101(a). Ameri-

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Tex's notice did this. The court of appeals found it significant that

Ameri-Tex listed only itself in the space for "Name of Claimant.” But

just inches below that line, a separate section of the form requested

information about "any injuries sustained.” In that space, Ameri-Tex

said nothing about itself but only identified Leach's injury ("Head

Contusion and neck strain”) and supplied Leach's name, phone number,

and address. At the top of the same page, Ameri-Tex listed the date and

time of the incident ("Approx. 12:15 P.M.” on "05-29-20”). And below

Leach's contact information, Ameri-Tex provided this narrative

describing the incident:

Leondra [Leach] had just left the landfill. Approx. a few

miles down [the road,] Leondra passed a City of Tyler

rolloff truck. A piece of [ ] wood flew from the roll-off truck,

struck our driver side mirror, entered the driver side

window and struck Leondra in the head. Republic pulled

surveillance [and] saw a City of Tyler roll-off enter the

landfill shortly after we left. GPS shows we turned around

at 12:15 P.M. and headed back to landfill.

Notice of this sort satisfies the statute's demand for basic information.

Second, and even if we were less confident that Ameri-Tex's filing

with the City satisfied Section 101.101(a), it would not matter here

because Leach filed his lawsuit four months after the incident. In

Colquitt v. Brazoria County, 324 S.W.3d 539 (Tex. 2010), this Court

addressed Section 101.101(a)'s notice requirement and held that a

"lawsuit itself, served on the governmental unit within six months of the

incident and containing all the requisite information, constitutes proper

notice under the [Texas Tort Claims] Act.” Id. at 541. Such a filing thus

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preserves jurisdiction. See id. at 543.1 Leach accordingly satisfied the

statutory requirement because his original petition contained the

information that Section 101.101(a) requires.

We accordingly cannot affirm the court of appeals' judgment on

the ground that the trial court lacked jurisdiction under Section

101.101(a). But it is not enough for a claimant to satisfy Section

101.101(a) when, as here, a city has its own notice requirements.2

Section 101.101(b) has "ratified and approved” such requirements,

including the City of Tyler's. The city charter's thirty-day period here

means that Leach could not invoke his lawsuit, filed four months after

the incident, to show compliance with the city charter. Whether the

district court had jurisdiction over Leach's claim, therefore, turns on

whether the notice that Ameri-Tex filed complies with Article IX,

Section 79 of the city charter, which provides as follows:

Before the City shall be liable for damages of any kind

involving property damages or personal injuries or

otherwise, the person injured or claiming such damages,

or someone in his behalf, shall give the City Manager or

City Clerk notice in writing of such damage or injury

within thirty (30) days after the same has been received,

stating specifically in such notice when, where and how

the exact injury or damages occurred and the full extent

1 The court of appeals cited Colquitt for the (correct) proposition that

the notice requirements of Section 101.101 are jurisdictional but did not

discuss Colquitt's holding that a lawsuit itself can provide notice that satisfies

Section 101.101(a). Neither party cited Colquitt.

2 We note that the City has never disputed Leach's compliance with

Section 101.101(a). As the City stated in its brief in this Court, only the city

charter matters: "This case presents only one issue: Did Leach submit evidence

that he or 'someone in his behalf' complied with his duty under the City's

Charter to submit a pre-suit notice of his claim to the City?”

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thereof. . . .

We hold that the form that Ameri-Tex filed met the city charter's

requirements for providing notice of Leach's claim. Much like Section

101.101(a), the charter requires timely written notice of basic

substantive information.3 It expressly anticipates that a third party

might supply that information; notice from "someone in [the claimant's]

behalf” is enough. Ameri-Tex filed "in [Leach's] behalf” by including

everything that the charter requires: when and where the incident

occurred, how it occurred, and the precise nature of Leach's injuries.

The City characterizes Ameri-Tex's notice as one that "does not

even identify the name of the claimant.” But Leach's name is on the

notice—repeatedly. The City's point is that, even if Leach's name

appears in the "injuries sustained” section of the form, his name does

not appear on the line denominated "Claimant.” Accordingly, the City

contends, it may disregard the notice of Leach's injuries.

The City could not reasonably conclude, however, that Ameri-Tex

named Leach, provided Leach's contact information, and detailed

Leach's injury for any reason other than to notify the City of that injury.

Leach was not, for example, listed as a mere witness to the

comparatively insignificant property damage to the side-mirror, which

Ameri-Tex valued at $207.19. The form, after all, has a separate section

3 As we discuss below, the form that Ameri-Tex filed supplies all the

substantive information that the city charter requires. We accordingly have

no occasion to address whether a charter could demand more information than

Section 101.101(a) requires (or, more precisely, whether there would be any

jurisdictional consequence for failure to comply with any parts of a locality's

notice requirement that go beyond the substantive requirements of Section

101.101(a)).

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for identifying witnesses, and Ameri-Tex listed someone else there.

The City likewise contends that the failure to assign any

monetary value to Leach's injury deprived the City of important

information. This argument does not support dismissal of Leach's

lawsuit. The charter is the law; the form merely facilitates its

implementation.4 Whether a charter or ordinance could require a

claimant—within thirty days of a personal injury, on pain of

jurisdictional dismissal—to provide valuation of personal-injury

damages is a separate question that we need not consider, because the

charter before us does not require such a valuation. Indeed, even the

form only clearly requests valuation information for property damage.

Ameri-Tex's notice was not inadequate—certainly not so much that

Leach's lawsuit must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The City additionally points to the underlying public-policy

concerns that motivate the notice requirements both of Section 101.101

and the city charter, including "ensur[ing] a prompt reporting of claims

to enable the municipality to investigate while facts are fresh.” City of

Houston v. Torres, 621 S.W.2d 588, 591 (Tex. 1981); see also Worsdale v.

4 In any event, the form treats information about property damage quite

differently from information about a personal injury. For "damage to

property,” the form asks the "value when new” of the property and requests

that the claimant attach "estimates of repairs.” Unsurprisingly, Ameri-Tex

answered those questions with respect to the side-mirror. But one would

hardly place a "value when new” on a human or an injured body part; it is

atypical to describe medical care as constituting "repairs” of an injured person.

The form has a separate section, which does not reference valuation, for

"describ[ing] any injuries sustained.” Ameri-Tex used that section to answer

that Leach had suffered a "Head Contusion and neck strain.” Ameri-Tex then

provided all of Leach's contact information and the detailed narrative of the

incident, including how the City allegedly caused Leach's injury.

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City of Killeen, 578 S.W.3d 57, 69-72 (Tex. 2019) (noting related public

purposes). Injured citizens are bound by enacted text, not underlying

legislative motivations. The notice on behalf of Leach more than

complies with the plain language of the statute and the city charter.

Regardless, the City draws the wrong lesson from the purposes that our

cases have recognized. If the City had wished to investigate the harm

to Leach, preserve evidence, assess its own liability, engage in

settlement before litigation, or the like, it had everything it needed to do

so from the notice it received: the exact time of the injury, what caused

the injury, the precise form of the injury, and Leach's home address and

phone number.

Therefore, without hearing oral argument, we reverse the

judgment below and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.