Exclusive Jurisdiction Limits in Texas Workers’ Compensation: District Courts May Decide Course-and-Scope Issues Raised Only as an Employer’s Exclusive-Remedy Defense

I. Introduction

In The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley v. Rita Oteka, No. 23‑0167 (Tex. June 13, 2025), the Supreme Court of Texas resolved a long‑developing split among the courts of appeals about who must decide a crucial threshold issue in many workplace‑injury disputes: whether the worker’s injury occurred in the “course and scope” of employment.

The case arises from an unusual posture. An employee, Rita Oteka, sued her employer, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), for a personal injury she claimed was not work‑related. UTRGV, a self‑insured governmental employer under the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act, initially treated the injury as non‑compensable and told both the Division of Workers’ Compensation (the “Division”) and Oteka as much. Only later—after she filed a tort suit—did the University reverse course and assert that the injury was work‑related and therefore barred by the Act’s exclusive‑remedy provision.

The central question before the Supreme Court was not whether the injury was work-related, but who has the authority to decide that question in the first instance:

• the district court, hearing a negligence action under the Texas Tort Claims Act, or
• the Division of Workers’ Compensation, via the administrative benefits‑dispute process.

The Court held that, in this posture, the Division does not have exclusive jurisdiction to decide whether the injury was work‑related. When an employer raises “course and scope of employment” only as an exclusive‑remedy defense in a civil lawsuit, and the employee’s requested relief does not depend on entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits, district courts retain subject‑matter jurisdiction to decide the issue.

This decision clarifies the boundaries of the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction, preserves the primacy of district courts as courts of general jurisdiction, and disapproves a contrary line of intermediate appellate decisions that had effectively required workers to invoke the administrative process even when they claimed their injuries were not work-related.

II. Background and Procedural History

A. The Underlying Incident

Rita Oteka was a faculty member at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She voluntarily attended a commencement ceremony to support former students—a ceremonial but arguably work‑adjacent activity. As she walked to her car in the parking lot of a leased convention center after the event, she was struck and injured by a vehicle driven by a University police officer.

UTRGV, as a self‑insured employer under Labor Code chapter 503, reported the incident to its third‑party claims administrator, as required when an employee’s injury results in more than one day’s absence from work. When asked about coverage, Oteka stated she would use her personal insurance.

The claims administrator then sent a letter to both Oteka and the Division stating that workers’ compensation benefits were being denied because:

1. she was seeking treatment under her own insurance and not pursuing benefits,
2. no supporting medical evidence had been provided, and
3. based on its investigation, the injury did not arise out of and in the course and scope of her employment.

Importantly, these stated grounds were the carrier’s official basis for denying compensability under Labor Code § 409.021–.022. From that point forward, it was undisputed—at least administratively—that the injury was not work-related.

Relying on that understanding, Oteka did not file a workers’ compensation claim within the one‑year deadline of Labor Code § 409.003(1). No administrative dispute over compensability was initiated in the Division.

B. The Civil Suit and the Exclusive‑Remedy Defense

More than a year after the injury, Oteka filed a negligence suit against the police officer. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code chapter 101 (the Tort Claims Act) and § 101.106(f), the University was substituted as the defendant. Governmental immunity is waived under § 101.021(1) for certain motor‑vehicle‑related personal injuries caused by a governmental employee’s negligence, subject to limitations.

UTRGV asserted, among other things, the exclusive‑remedy defense under Labor Code § 408.001(a). That provision states that recovery of workers’ compensation benefits is the exclusive remedy of a covered employee against the employer for a “work‑related injury.” Because governmental units that provide workers’ compensation coverage are entitled to the same privileges and immunities as private employers (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.028), UTRGV claimed that, if the injury was work-related, the negligence suit was barred.

The parties filed cross‑motions for summary judgment on this defense:

• Oteka’s position: The injury was not work-related because attendance at the ceremony was voluntary, and she had already left the event and was simply walking to her car.
• UTRGV’s position: Clinical‑track faculty were expected to attend at least one commencement ceremony per year, with such attendance counting toward a requirement that 10% of worktime be devoted to “service”; and she was injured in an access area (the parking lot) associated with the event. Thus, the injury arose in the course and scope of her employment.

C. The Carrier’s Reversal and the Plea to the Jurisdiction

Before the trial court ruled on the motions, the University’s claims administrator reversed its earlier position. Thirty‑one months after the incident—and about a year after UTRGV had first raised the exclusive‑remedy defense—the administrator sent a new letter declaring that the injury was now “accepted as compensable” and that workers’ compensation benefits would be paid. The University represented that this reopening of compensability was justified by “newly discovered evidence” under Labor Code § 409.021(d), principally evidence introduced in the civil summary‑judgment proceedings.

The next day, UTRGV filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting that:

• the Division has exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether an employee’s injury occurred in the course and scope of employment;
• because Oteka never filed a workers’ compensation claim, she failed to exhaust administrative remedies; and
• as a result, the trial court lacked subject‑matter jurisdiction over her negligence suit, which should be dismissed (initially sought with prejudice; at oral argument, the University conceded abatement would be the more appropriate remedy).

The trial court denied the plea. UTRGV took an interlocutory appeal under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.014(a)(8).

D. The Court of Appeals and the Split in Authority

The Thirteenth Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi–Edinburg) affirmed. Relying on its prior decision in Berry Contracting, L.P. v. Mann, 549 S.W.3d 314 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2018, pet. denied), it held that:

• the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction does not extend to all cases that “touch on” workers’ compensation issues; and
• exhaustion was not required because Oteka’s tort suit did not turn on whether she was eligible for benefits.

Other courts of appeals, however, had held that the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction to determine “compensability” necessarily includes the exclusive authority to decide whether an injury occurred in the course and scope of employment, even when raised only defensively. Representative cases include:

• In re Tyler Asphalt & Gravel Co., 107 S.W.3d 832 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2003, orig. proceeding)
• Berrelez v. Mesquite Logistics USA, Inc., 562 S.W.3d 69 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2018, no pet.)
• In re Hellas Construction, Inc., No. 03‑21‑00182‑CV, 2022 WL 2975702 (Tex. App.—Austin July 28, 2022, orig. proceeding [mand. denied])
• In re Prentis, 702 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2024, orig. proceeding)
• In re Texas Mutual Insurance Co., No. 04‑24‑00386‑CV, 2025 WL 610877 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Feb. 26, 2025, orig. proceeding)

This direct conflict among intermediate courts on a recurring question—who decides course‑and‑scope in the exclusive‑remedy context—prompted the Supreme Court to grant review.

III. Summary of the Supreme Court’s Opinion

Justice Devine, writing for a unanimous Court, affirmed the court of appeals. The Court’s core holding is succinct:

“[T]he Division does not have exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether an injury was work-related in a dispute arising outside of the compensability context when the employee’s requested relief does not depend on entitlement to benefits.”

Key points of the decision include:

• The Texas Constitution gives district courts general jurisdiction over “all actions” unless the Legislature has expressly (or by a clearly pervasive regulatory scheme) conferred exclusive jurisdiction on another tribunal. Administrative agencies, by contrast, have only the powers the Legislature clearly grants.
• The Workers’ Compensation Act clearly grants the Division exclusive jurisdiction to determine entitlement to benefits and to adjudicate disputes over compensability of injuries within the administrative claims process.
• However, the Act does not give the Division exclusive jurisdiction to determine “course and scope” in all contexts, particularly when:
  • no workers’ compensation claim has been filed,
  • the only use of “course and scope” is as part of an employer’s exclusive‑remedy defense in a civil tort suit, and
  • the worker is not asking any court to award benefits, nor is the tort claim predicated on entitlement to benefits.
• The statutory scheme itself lacks any procedural mechanism allowing an employee or employer to obtain a stand‑alone course‑and‑scope determination from the Division independent of a workers’ compensation claim for benefits. Forcing an employee to file a benefits claim she does not want, solely to get an adverse course‑and‑scope finding, would be an “unnatural” and unintended use of the system.
• The Court emphasized the strong presumption in favor of district‑court jurisdiction and characterized the University’s burden to divest district courts of that jurisdiction as requiring a “compelling showing.” That showing was not made.
• The Court expressly disapproved several courts of appeals’ decisions that had held otherwise, and reaffirmed that trial courts may adjudicate the exclusive‑remedy defense—including its course‑and‑scope component—when entitlement to benefits is not itself at issue.
• At the same time, the Court recognized and preserved the importance of the exclusive‑remedy provision and explained that statutory safeguards (notably the one‑year claim‑filing deadline and “good cause” standard) and judicial tools (like abatement for parallel proceedings) will deter abuse by claimants trying to “take a shot” at tort recovery before seeking benefits.

IV. Detailed Analysis

A. The Constitutional and Administrative‑Law Framework

The Court began with first principles of jurisdiction in Texas:

• Article V, § 8 of the Texas Constitution grants district courts “exclusive, appellate, and original jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and remedies” except where exclusive jurisdiction is placed elsewhere by the Constitution or by statute.
• Administrative agencies are “legislative creations,” possessing only those powers that are:
  1. expressly conferred, and
  2. necessary to accomplish their designated duties.
  (citing, among others, In re CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC, 629 S.W.3d 149 (Tex. 2021) and Oncor Electric Delivery Co. v. Chaparral Energy, LLC, 546 S.W.3d 133 (Tex. 2018)).

From this, the Court reaffirmed two important doctrines:

1. No presumption of agency jurisdiction. Courts do not presume that an agency has either concurrent or exclusive adjudicative jurisdiction over disputes; such jurisdiction must be clearly conferred by the Legislature (Pape Partners, Ltd. v. DRR Family Properties LP, 645 S.W.3d 267 (Tex. 2022)).
2. “Compelling showing” requirement. A party asserting that an agency has exclusive jurisdiction—and therefore that a district court lacks subject‑matter jurisdiction—must make a “compelling showing” that the Legislature intended to divest the courts of their constitutional authority (citing S.C. v. M.B., 650 S.W.3d 428 (Tex. 2022)).

Exclusive jurisdiction may be established either by:

• an express statutory grant; or
• a pervasive regulatory scheme that makes clear the Legislature intended the administrative process to be the exclusive means of remedying the particular problem (In re Entergy Corp., 142 S.W.3d 316 (Tex. 2004)).

The key inquiry, therefore, is whether the Workers’ Compensation Act evidences a legislative intent that the Division have exclusive jurisdiction over the course‑and‑scope question in the specific setting presented here.

B. The Workers’ Compensation Scheme and Precedents Cited

1. Structure of the Workers’ Compensation Act

Under Labor Code § 406.031(a), an employee is eligible for benefits if:

1. the employee is “subject to” the Act at the time of injury, and
2. the injury “arises out of and in the course and scope of employment.”

A “compensable injury,” per § 401.011(10), is one that arises out of and in the course and scope of employment for which compensation is payable under the Act. “Benefits” include medical, income, death, and burial benefits. Labor Code § 401.011(5).

The Division, administered within the Department of Insurance, operates the dispute‑resolution system for benefits disputes. That system is detailed in Chapter 410 and includes:

1. a benefit review conference (informal mediation),
2. a contested case hearing before a Division hearing officer or administrative law judge,
3. appeal to the Division’s appeals panel, and
4. judicial review with modified de novo review (and a jury right) for compensability and benefits issues, and substantial‑evidence review for other issues (§§ 410.251–.308).

Section 408.001(a), the exclusive‑remedy provision, states that:

“Recovery of workers’ compensation benefits is the exclusive remedy of an employee covered by workers’ compensation insurance coverage...against the employer...for the death of or a work‑related injury sustained by the employee.”

This provision embodies the classic “grand bargain” of workers’ compensation: employees give up negligence suits against their employers for on‑the‑job injuries, and employers in return provide prompt, no‑fault benefits. As the Court has often described, this compromise is “essential to the Act’s continued success” (Mo‑Vac Service Co. v. Escobedo, 603 S.W.3d 119, 125 (Tex. 2020); Reed Tool Co. v. Copelin, 689 S.W.2d 404 (Tex. 1985)).

2. The Division’s Exclusive Jurisdiction over Benefits and Compensability

The Court reaffirmed prior holdings that only the Division may determine a claimant’s entitlement to compensation benefits, subject to statutory judicial review:

• American Motorists Insurance Co. v. Fodge, 63 S.W.3d 801 (Tex. 2001): A court cannot award damages for denial of benefits without a Division determination that those benefits were due; the claimant may not circumvent the Division’s exclusive authority to decide entitlement to benefits.
• Tex. Mutual Insurance Co. v. Ruttiger, 381 S.W.3d 430 (Tex. 2012), and In re Accident Fund General Insurance Co., 543 S.W.3d 750 (Tex. 2017): The Act provides the exclusive process and remedies for claims arising from a carrier’s investigation, handling, or settlement of workers’ compensation claims.

These cases stand for a narrow but important proposition: a party cannot bypass the Division when the relief requested from the court is predicated on entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits or on alleged misconduct in handling such a claim. In such cases, exhaustion is required, and courts lack jurisdiction until the administrative process runs its course.

But crucially, those cases do not hold that the Division has exclusive jurisdiction over every legal issue that could affect whether an injury is work-related, regardless of context. That more expansive reading is what the University urged and what the Court rejected here.

3. Prior Supreme Court Cases on the Exclusive‑Remedy Defense

The Court placed particular weight on its own past treatment of the exclusive‑remedy defense, noting that it has repeatedly reached the merits of such defenses in civil litigation without questioning subject‑matter jurisdiction or requiring administrative exhaustion. Examples include:

• Walls Regional Hospital v. Bomar, 9 S.W.3d 805 (Tex. 1999)
• Garza v. Exel Logistics, Inc., 161 S.W.3d 473 (Tex. 2005)
• City of Bellaire v. Johnson, 400 S.W.3d 922 (Tex. 2013)
• Waste Management of Texas, Inc. v. Stevenson, 622 S.W.3d 273 (Tex. 2021)
• GTE Southwest, Inc. v. Bruce, 998 S.W.2d 605 (Tex. 1999)

Among these, Walls Regional Hospital v. Bomar is particularly instructive. Nurses sued their hospital employer for negligence after a doctor with staff privileges sexually harassed them at work. The hospital argued the exclusive‑remedy defense applied because the injuries were work‑related. The Court engaged directly with the course‑and‑scope question—including whether the injuries fell within a statutory exception for assaults “for a personal reason and not directed at the employee as an employee or because of the employment” (Labor Code § 406.032(1)(C))—and concluded the injuries occurred in the course of employment, barring the negligence action.

In Bomar, the Court did not insist that the Division must first determine compensability or course and scope. Nor did it vacate the judgment and require an administrative detour. Although the Court acknowledges that silence on jurisdiction is not a binding jurisdictional holding, it treats the consistent willingness to decide exclusive‑remedy issues on the merits as persuasive confirmation that no jurisdictional barrier exists for district courts to decide such defenses.

C. The Court’s Legal Reasoning in Oteka

1. No Express Grant of Exclusive Jurisdiction over Course and Scope in This Context

UTRGV conceded that the Legislature did not enact an explicit provision granting the Division exclusive jurisdiction to decide course‑and‑scope issues as they arise in civil tort suits via the exclusive‑remedy defense. The University correctly acknowledged, for example, that the Division does not have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes regarding the existence or scope of an employer’s workers’ compensation coverage.

Nevertheless, the University argued that because course‑and‑scope is a component of “compensability,” and because compensability is generally within the Division’s exclusive bailiwick, any course‑and‑scope question must first be decided administratively—even when raised only defensively in a civil suit and even when the worker is not seeking benefits.

The Court rejected this “expansive” view, emphasizing that:

• the Division’s exclusive authority is over benefits entitlement and disputes within the Chapter 410 process;
• the statute contains no express divestiture of judicial authority to decide course‑and‑scope in other contexts; and
• an employer’s use of course‑and‑scope as an affirmative defense in a tort suit does not transform that issue into one within the Division’s exclusive original jurisdiction.

The Court analogized to In re Oncor Electric Delivery Co., 630 S.W.3d 40 (Tex. 2021), where it held that the Public Utility Commission’s regulation of electric tariffs did not mean that any civil dispute involving tariffs fell exclusively within the Commission’s jurisdiction. The mere presence of a regulated subject as a defense (a tariff, or here a workers’ compensation defense) does not oust the courts of jurisdiction.

2. The Absence of a Procedural Mechanism: An “Unnatural” Use of the System

A central pillar of the Court’s reasoning is the structure of Chapter 410 and the definition of a “claim for compensation.”

Under §§ 409.003 and 401.011(5), (10), and (11), a compensation claim is:

• a claim filed by an employee or someone acting on the employee’s behalf,
• for the payment of benefits,
• based on an injury that arises out of and in the course and scope of employment,
• for which compensation is payable under the Act.

Chapter 410’s dispute‑resolution mechanism is then triggered by “disputed workers’ compensation claims” and is designed to resolve benefit disputes:

• the Division “may direct the parties to a disputed workers’ compensation claim to meet in a benefit review conference” (§ 410.023(a));
• arbitration and contested‑case hearings presuppose that a benefit‑review conference has occurred and unresolved dispute remains (§§ 410.104, .151); and
• judicial review under § 410.251 is available only after exhaustion.

This framework presumes a live benefits dispute. It does not contemplate a stand‑alone request for a declaratory ruling about course and scope, apart from any claim for benefits.

For the Court, that matters greatly. Requiring a worker like Oteka—who claims her injury is not work-related and who does not seek benefits—to:

• file a compensation claim for payment of benefits, and
• then argue against the compensability of her own claim,

merely to obtain a negative course‑and‑scope finding from the Division so she may pursue a civil lawsuit, is “unnatural” and not supported by the text or structure of the Act.

The Court drew support from Butnaru v. Ford Motor Co., 84 S.W.3d 198 (Tex. 2002), where a lack of procedural mechanism in a statutory scheme was taken as evidence that the Legislature did not intend an agency to have exclusive jurisdiction over a particular type of claim.

3. Presumption in Favor of District‑Court Jurisdiction

After canvassing the statutory framework and highlighting the absence of an appropriate administrative mechanism, the Court returned to the constitutional presumption:

Unless the Legislature has clearly granted exclusive jurisdiction to an agency, district courts retain their constitutionally conferred authority. The Court interpreted the Workers’ Compensation Act’s text and structure, along with its own precedent, as all “point[ing] in the same direction”: the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction does not extend to deciding whether an injury was work‑related in the scenario presented here.

The Court carefully cabined its holding to two conditions:

1. the course‑and‑scope issue is raised by the employer’s exclusive‑remedy defense, not in the context of a claim for benefits; and
2. the employee’s requested relief in the lawsuit does not depend on entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits.

So, where an employee sues directly for denial of benefits, delay damages, bad faith in claims handling, or any other relief that presupposes that certain workers’ compensation benefits are (or were) owed, Fodge and its progeny still require that the Division decide compensability first.

D. Safeguards Against Abuse and the Role of Abatement

1. Concern About “Two Bites at the Apple”

The University and amicus Texas Mutual Insurance Company warned that, if district courts can freely decide course‑and‑scope questions in tort suits, workers might:

• initially claim that an injury is not work‑related,
• pursue a tort action hoping for a higher recovery, and
• only if unsuccessful, fall back on workers’ compensation benefits.

They argued this would undermine the “grand bargain” by increasing litigation costs, duplicating proceedings, and upsetting the balance between employer protections and employee remedies.

2. Statutory Safeguard: One‑Year Filing Deadline and “Good Cause”

The Court responded by pointing to Labor Code §§ 409.003–.004, which:

• require an employee to file a compensation claim within one year of the date of injury; and
• relieve the employer and carrier of liability under the Act if that deadline is missed, unless the claim is uncontested or “good cause” exists for the failure.

“Good cause” for late filing, drawn from cases like Lee v. Houston Fire & Casualty Insurance Co., 530 S.W.2d 294 (Tex. 1975), and Hawkins v. Safety Casualty Co., 207 S.W.2d 370 (Tex. 1948), requires that the worker prosecute her claim with the diligence of an ordinarily prudent person under similar circumstances, and that such cause must continue up to the date the claim is actually filed.

The Court expressly observed that the mere desire to “take a shot” at a larger tort recovery before seeking benefits would not constitute good cause. Thus:

• if a worker delays beyond the one‑year deadline simply to see how a tort case turns out, she risks forfeiting workers’ compensation benefits entirely if the injury is later found to be work-related;
• to preserve both potential avenues of recovery, a prudent employee would need to file a compensation claim within one year—even while a civil suit is pending.

3. Judicial Tool: Abatement of Parallel Proceedings

The Court also pointed to the judiciary’s own tools to manage dual‑track litigation. Where both a civil suit and an administrative benefits proceeding are pending, courts may, on prudential grounds, abate the civil action to allow the Division to decide issues within its core expertise.

Citing cases such as Dolenz v. Continental National Bank of Fort Worth, 620 S.W.2d 572 (Tex. 1981), Kallinen v. City of Houston, 462 S.W.3d 25 (Tex. 2015), and In re Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 226 S.W.3d 400 (Tex. 2007), the Court noted that abatement can:

• avoid inconsistent rulings and confusion,
• prevent needless expense and duplication, and
• respect an agency’s “core area of authority” while maintaining the courts’ ultimate adjudicative role.

The Court emphasized, however, that no parallel administrative proceeding was pending in Oteka, and UTRGV had sought only dismissal (not abatement) until oral argument in the Supreme Court. Therefore, the Court expressly declined to decide whether, or under what circumstances, abatement or a formal referral to the Division might be appropriate in future cases. It left that question open.

E. Disapproved Precedents and Resolution of the Split

To end the jurisprudential confusion, the Court expressly disapproved the contrary holdings of several courts of appeals, including:

• In re Texas Mutual Insurance Co., 2025 WL 610877 (Tex. App.—San Antonio)
• In re Prentis, 702 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2024)
• In re Hellas Construction, Inc., 2022 WL 2975702 (Tex. App.—Austin)
• Berrelez v. Mesquite Logistics USA, Inc., 562 S.W.3d 69 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2018)
• In re Tyler Asphalt & Gravel Co., 107 S.W.3d 832 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2003)

Those cases had taken the categorical position that the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction over “compensability” necessarily entailed exclusive jurisdiction over whether an injury occurred in the course and scope of employment, regardless of whether a workers’ compensation claim had been filed or whether the dispute concerned entitlement to benefits.

In contrast, the Supreme Court endorsed the approach of cases like:

• Berry Contracting, L.P. v. Mann, 549 S.W.3d 314 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2018, pet. denied)
• Medrano v. Kerry Ingredients & Flavours, Inc., No. 02‑20‑00247‑CV, 2021 WL 1323432 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 8, 2021, no pet.)
• In re Recess Arcade Bar, LLC, No. 03‑24‑00230‑CV, 2024 WL 3048577 (Tex. App.—Austin June 19, 2024, orig. proceeding)

which held that exhaustion is not required when the plaintiff’s suit for common‑law damages is not based on the “ultimate question” of eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits.

V. Simplifying Key Legal Concepts

A. “Course and Scope of Employment” and “Work‑Related Injury”

A central statutory term is “course and scope of employment.” It generally refers to an injury that:

• occurs while the employee is performing tasks for the employer, or
• is related to or originates in the employer’s business and happens while the employee is engaged in or about the furtherance of the employer’s affairs.

Section 408.001 uses the term “work‑related injury” for exclusive‑remedy purposes. The Court noted (citing Payne v. Galen Hospital Corp., 28 S.W.3d 15 (Tex. 2000)) that it has left open whether “course and scope of employment” and “work‑related” are always perfectly coextensive. In Oteka, however, both sides treated them as effectively equivalent, and the Court followed that usage without resolving the broader question.

B. Exclusive‑Remedy Defense

The exclusive‑remedy defense arises from Labor Code § 408.001(a). If an employee is:

1. covered by workers’ compensation insurance, and
2. the injury is work‑related,

then her only remedy against the employer for that injury is workers’ compensation benefits. She cannot sue the employer in negligence (subject to narrow exceptions like certain intentional torts or exemplary damages for gross negligence in death cases, which were not at issue here).

In litigation, employers plead § 408.001 as an affirmative defense. The employer bears the burden to show that:

• it had workers’ compensation coverage; and
• the employee’s injury was work‑related.

C. Exclusive Jurisdiction and Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies

Exclusive jurisdiction means the Legislature has given an agency the sole authority to make an initial determination on a particular category of disputes. If so:

• a district court cannot decide those issues until the agency process is completed; and
• any lawsuit filed before agency exhaustion must be dismissed or abated for lack of jurisdiction.

Exhaustion of administrative remedies is the requirement that parties use—and complete—the available agency procedures before going to court. It is mandatory only when the agency has exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute or issue in question.

In workers’ compensation, the Division’s exclusive jurisdiction clearly covers disputes about benefits entitlement and related carrier conduct. But Oteka holds that it does not extend to every dispute in which “course and scope of employment” is relevant—particularly when that issue arises only defensively in a civil tort suit and no party is asking a court to award or review workers’ compensation benefits.

D. Plea to the Jurisdiction and Interlocutory Appeal

A plea to the jurisdiction is a procedural tool by which a defendant challenges a court’s subject‑matter jurisdiction. If granted, the claim is dismissed (or abated) because the court cannot lawfully adjudicate it.

Governmental units, including state universities, may take an interlocutory appeal from the denial of such a plea under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.014(a)(8), allowing appellate review of jurisdictional questions before trial.

E. Abatement

Abatement is a procedural pause—a court suspends proceedings in one case to await the outcome of another proceeding that may bear on it. It is not a loss of jurisdiction; instead, it is an exercise of judicial discretion and comity to avoid duplication, inconsistency, or waste.

In this context, a trial court might abate a tort case while a parallel workers’ compensation claim is pending before the Division, allowing the Division to resolve compensability and benefits issues first. But whether abatement is required or appropriate in particular circumstances remains an open, case‑specific question.

VI. Impact and Implications

A. For Employees

Oteka significantly clarifies that:

• A worker who genuinely believes her injury is not work-related may file a civil tort suit without first litigating course and scope in the Division.
• If the employer later asserts that the injury was work-related and raises the exclusive‑remedy defense, the trial court may decide that issue without requiring the worker to file a workers’ compensation claim she does not want.
• However, the worker must still be mindful of the one‑year deadline to file a workers’ compensation claim if she wishes to preserve the option of benefits. Waiting to see how a tort case turns out may result in forfeiture of compensation rights unless “good cause” is shown for the delay.

Strategically, employees injured in circumstances that could plausibly be work-related face a choice:

• file a compensation claim within a year to preserve benefits (and perhaps also file a tort suit if they contend the injury was not actually work-related); or
• forgo filing a claim and risk that a later finding of a work‑related injury will leave them without either tort recovery (due to the exclusive‑remedy bar) or compensation benefits (due to a late claim).

B. For Employers and Carriers

For employers (including governmental units) and carriers, the decision has several implications:

• It prevents employers from using a late shift in position—from initially denying compensability to later accepting it—as a jurisdictional weapon to derail an otherwise valid tort suit without ever having litigated course and scope administratively.
• Employers will need to litigate the exclusive‑remedy defense on the merits in district court when it is raised in a civil suit and no administrative proceeding is pending.
• Carriers should recognize that their initial compensability determinations, communicated under §§ 409.021–.022, may shape the litigation environment. An early denial of compensability may encourage an employee to pursue tort remedies, after which a later reversal cannot retroactively deprive the civil court of jurisdiction.
• Where an employee files both a tort suit and a workers’ compensation claim, employers can (and likely should) seek abatement of the tort action to avoid inconsistent determinations and duplicative expense.

C. For the Division of Workers’ Compensation

The Division retains:

• exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate entitlement to benefits and disputes about compensability within the Chapter 410 process;
• authority over claims‑handling disputes and remedies as set out in Ruttiger and related cases; and
• a central role in resolving course‑and‑scope questions when those arise in the context of a compensation claim.

But the Division is not the exclusive forum for resolving course‑and‑scope issues in all settings. District courts may decide those questions when raised solely as part of an exclusive‑remedy defense in tort suits, meaning:

• The Division’s docket will not be expanded to include stand‑alone requests for course‑and‑scope declarations absent a benefits dispute.
• The boundaries of the Division’s authority are more precisely aligned with the Legislature’s design: administration of the compensation system, not adjudication of all employment‑related injury questions in every context.

D. Doctrinal Clarification in Administrative Law

Beyond workers’ compensation, Oteka reinforces several broader administrative‑law principles:

• Text and structure control. Exclusive jurisdiction is not inferred merely from the existence of a regulatory scheme; courts look for procedural mechanisms that meaningfully encompass the contested issue.
• Defensive use of regulated issues. The presence of an issue within an agency’s domain (like compensability or utility tariffs) as a defense in civil litigation does not automatically strip courts of jurisdiction.
• Judicial practice matters. When the Supreme Court has long decided certain issues on the merits without hinting at jurisdictional impediments (as with the exclusive‑remedy defense), that practice, while not dispositive, informs the understanding of the jurisdictional landscape.

E. Open Questions

The decision leaves several issues for future development, including:

• Under what exact circumstances should a trial court abate a tort suit in favor of a pending compensation proceeding, or vice versa?
• What preclusive effect, if any, will a trial court’s course‑and‑scope determination have in a subsequent Division proceeding on benefits, and conversely?
• How will courts treat borderline situations where the plaintiff’s alleged injury blends physical injury with claims that sound in improper denial or delay of benefits?
• To what extent are “work‑related” (for § 408.001) and “course and scope of employment” (for compensability) truly coextensive across all factual scenarios?

VII. Conclusion

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley v. Oteka clarifies a fundamental jurisdictional boundary in Texas workers’ compensation law. The decision holds that the Division of Workers’ Compensation does not have exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether an injury was work-related when:

1. the question arises solely as part of an employer’s exclusive‑remedy defense in a civil lawsuit, and
2. the employee’s requested relief does not depend on entitlement to workers’ compensation benefits.

In such circumstances, district courts—Texas’s courts of general jurisdiction—retain their constitutional authority to adjudicate course‑and‑scope disputes, including those that may ultimately determine whether the exclusive‑remedy provision bars a tort claim.

At the same time, the Court reaffirmed the centrality of the exclusive‑remedy provision to the workers’ compensation system and underscored statutory and judicial safeguards that prevent strategic manipulation of the system by claimants. By rejecting a broad view of agency exclusivity that lacked textual support and would have forced employees into “unnatural” administrative maneuvers, the Court preserved the balance between legislative design, administrative competence, and judicial responsibility.

The decision resolves a deep split among the courts of appeals, provides clear guidance to litigants and lower courts, and serves as an important precedent delineating the proper reach of administrative exclusive jurisdiction in Texas.