Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog
Insurance claims, like all claims, have time periods within which lawsuits must be filed, otherwise, the statute of limitations will run. This is illustrated in a 2024 opinion from the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals. The opinion is styled, Jessica Galvin v. RVOS Farm Mutual Insurance Company.
The facts of this case are unusual and a reading of the facts helps to understand the ultimate ruling by the Court. This is a summary judgment case decided in favor of RVOS.
The controlling question in this case is when Galvan’s claims accrued. Generally, a claim accrues, and limitations begins to run, “when the defendant’s wrongful conduct causes the claimant to suffer a legal injury, which gives the claimant the right to seek a judicial remedy.” That is, a claim accrues “when injury occurs, not afterward when the full extent of the injury is known.” According to the Texas Supreme Court, “Generally, a cause of action accrues when a wrongful act causes a legal injury.”
[A] defendant’s wrongful conduct may breach multiple legal duties, produce multiple legal injuries, or cause multiple types of damages, and thus give rise to multiple causes of action. Because each claim or cause of action may allege different legal injuries, they could—at least in theory—each accrue at different times, even though they arise from the same wrongful conduct. But under the single-action rule, a defendant’s wrongful conduct gives rise to a single, indivisible action in which the claimant must pursue
all claims for all damages resulting from all injuries that arise from the wrongful conduct, and those claims all accrue when the first such injury occurs.
Here, Galvan’s voluminous petition contains a litany of allegations against RVOS, only some of which correspond to specific factual allegations for which precise accrual dates can be gleaned from the record. Nevertheless, it is apparent that all of Galvan’s claims—whether based on alleged policy breaches or statutory violations—ultimately stem from RVOS’s initial decision regarding her amount of loss. Galvan was advised of that decision via RVOS’s letter to her counsel on February 27, 2018. And, as indicated by that letter and by her counsel’s letter of February 19, 2019, Galvan was aware that RVOS’s conclusion as to the amount of loss was “substantially different” from her own. Galvan thus suffered her legal injury no later than February 19, 2019. The instant suit was filed on July 6, 2023. Accordingly, regardless of whether a two-year or four-year limitations period applies, Galvan’s suit was untimely.
Galvan appears to assert that her claims at least partially accrued when RVOS paid her the appraisal award in September of 2022. However, as noted, she acknowledged in her summary judgment response that “[RVOS] paid [her] amounts the appraisal award identified.” Galvan complained that RVOS “failed to pay [her] any attorneys’ fees or statutory interest” along with the appraisal award, but she did not allege any facts or cite any authority establishing that the appraiser was required to award those amounts or that RVOS was required to pay them. Under these circumstances, the Court concluded that RVOS established its entitlement to judgment as a matter of law and Galvan failed to raise an issue of material fact as to limitations. Therefore, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment on this basis.