On December 3, 2021, Sonia Janeth Espinoza was driving in Lubbock County when Madyson Taylor Leita, who was working for Texas Tech University and driving a Texas Tech vehicle, allegedly failed to control her speed and hit the back of Espinoza's car, causing serious bodily injuries.¹

On November 17, 2023, just under two years after the collision, Espinoza sued Leita for negligence. On January 12, 2024, Leita answered and moved under Tort Claims Act section 101.106(f) to dismiss, supported by affidavits that she was acting within the scope of her Texas Tech duties; the filing was made by the Attorney General's office. Section 101.106(f) gave Espinoza 30 days to substitute Texas Tech, but she filed her first amended petition adding Texas Tech as a defendant on March 5, 2024, fifty-three days after the motion, while continuing to name Leita; Leita was then dismissed by agreement on March 13, 2024. Texas Tech filed a plea to the jurisdiction on the ground that the two-year limitations period of Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.003(a) had run, and the 72nd District Court of Lubbock County (Judge John C. Grace) granted it.¹ The Seventh Court of Appeals (Yarbrough, J., joined by Quinn, C.J., and Parker, J.) reversed and remanded, reasoning that Espinoza's timely suit against Leita "substantively" was a suit against Texas Tech. Espinoza v. Texas Tech University, No. 07-24-00332-CV, 2025 WL 2046135 (Tex. App.⁠—Amarillo July 21, 2025, pet. filed) (mem. op.).² Texas Tech petitioned for review on September 3, 2025, and the Court requested briefs on the merits on February 27, 2026; they were filed March 30, May 4 and May 19, 2026 (Docket).

Petition for review from the Seventh Court of Appeals, which reversed an order granting a state university's plea to the jurisdiction on limitations grounds in a Tort Claims Act motor-vehicle suit. The Court requested and received merits briefing, granted the petition on October 2, 2026 and set oral argument for November 5, 2026.

Texas Tech presents whether Espinoza can maintain her untimely tort claim against it on the basis that her initial suit against Leita was timely, even though she failed to substitute Texas Tech within 30 days of Leita's section 101.106(f) motion as the statute requires.¹ Espinoza responds that the court of appeals correctly reversed because the issue was already decided in University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio v. Bailey.²

Petitioner (Texas Tech University): Espinoza missed two decisive deadlines: she did not sue Texas Tech within the two-year limitations period and, when section 101.106(f) gave her an extra 30 days to substitute Texas Tech, she missed that deadline too. The court of appeals ignored Texas Adjutant General's Office v. Ngakoue, which confirmed that statutes of limitations apply when a plaintiff adds claims against a governmental employer outside the 30-day grace period. That her claims against Leita were in substance claims against Texas Tech did not excuse her from substituting Texas Tech or suing it within two years, and the court's reasoning would let a plaintiff substitute or file against the entity at any time. It asks the Court to reverse and render judgment dismissing the suit.¹

Respondent (Sonia Janeth Espinoza): Bailey and Ngakoue hold that a governmental employer may be substituted for the employee after limitations has run because there is no change in the real party in interest. She argues she amended to name Texas Tech while Leita was still a party, so Texas Tech is a substituted, not added, party; section 101.106(f) is an election-of-remedies protection for the employee, not a limitations bar the entity can invoke after substitution; and the Attorney General's office, which filed Leita's answer asserting she acted in the course and scope of her employment, also represents Texas Tech, so Texas Tech was already effectively in the case.²

Texas Tech argues the petition presents a question of law important to Texas jurisprudence concerning a plaintiff's failure to meet section 101.106(f)'s deadlines and interdependent limitations statutes, that the decision conflicts with Ngakoue, and that it is a patent error warranting review under Rule 56.1(a)(3) and (a)(5).¹ Espinoza responds that the Court already decided the issue in Bailey and the court of appeals followed it.²

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