Texas Workers' Compensation Commission v. Garcia

Texas Workers' Compensation Commission v. Garcia, 893 S.W.2d 504, 511 (Tex. 1995) dealt with an open-courts challenge to the Workers' Compensation Act, not section 406.033's scope or interpretation. 23 S.W.3d at 352. The Court did not intend in Garcia to suggest that section 406.033(c) eliminated every conceivable defense in suits against nonsubscribers. In Garcia, this Court considered the Act's compensation scheme critical in resolving constitutional challenges to the statute. 893 S.W.2d at 523-24 (holding that the Act does not violate Texas' open courts guarantee because it assures that injured employees may either assert common-law claims or receive the Act's adequate substitute remedies). And, The Court have recognized that the Act does not arbitrarily abolish an employee's common-law claims because it substitutes a different but certain and adequate legal remedy for the one that existed at common-law. Lebohm v. City of Galveston, 154 Tex. 192, 275 S.W.2d 951, 954 (Tex. 1955); see also Holmans v. Transource Polymers, Inc., 914 S.W.2d 189, 193 (Tex. App.--Fort Worth 1995, writ denied) ( "The Workers' Compensation Act is an example of the legislature's reasonable substitute for common-law rights."). In Garcia, the Court recognized that "legislative action withdrawing common-law remedies for well-established common-law causes of action for injuries to one's 'lands, goods, person, or reputation'" is permissible "when it is reasonable in substituting other remedies." Garcia, 893 S.W.2d at 520-21.