Justice Emily Miskel
The Dallas Court of Appeals has dismissed a lawsuit against an out-of-state employer whose remote employee in Texas was involved in an accident when off work for the day.
Infotek Consulting, LLC v. Glenn Michael Dunn (No. 05-26-00028-CV; October 5, 2026) arose out of an automobile accident. Plaintiff Dunn alleged that Lombardi, an employee of Intotek, struck him with her car. He sued Lombardi for negligence and gross negligence, and later added Infotek as a defendant, asserting respondeat superior. Infotek filed a special appearance, contesting general and specific jurisdiction. The trial court denied the special appearance. Infotek appealed.
In an opinion by Justice Miskel, the court of appeals reversed and rendered. Plaintiff alleged that Lombardi was acting within the course and scope of her employment when the accident occurred. Infotek, a Delaware corporation with headquarters in Virginia, responded that Lombardi had already clocked out for the day and was on her way to an engagement unrelated to her job. Plaintiff responded by arguing that Plaintiff’s timesheet showed eight hours of recorded work beginning at 8 am, so she must still have been working when she struck Plaintiff at 3:54 pm. Infotek’s CEO countered that the timesheet didn’t establish the number of hours Lombardi worked (she worked remotely, by the way), “but the number of thirty-minute increments she billed to clients.” She could thus have billed clients for 8 hours of work and still have stopped work before the accident occurred.
Plaintiff tried to argue that “because Lombardi worked remotely, she ‘could have still been working at the time of the crash.” The court found this contention speculative and unsupported by the evidence. Lombardi previously admitted that she had stopped working for the day, and Plaintiff failed to produce evidence contradicting her. “Self-serving speculation,” the court observed, will not create a fact issue to defeat a special appearance” (citations omitted). Plaintiff then argued that Infotek waived its special appearance by requesting affirmative relief. This argument failed because Infotek only appeared in the case by way of a special appearance and used boilerplate language to ask for “such further relief to which this Defendant may show itself to be entitled.” Standing alone, the court stated, that was not enough to convert a special appearance into a general one.
The court ruled that the trial court erred in denying the special appearance, reversed, and rendered judgment in favor of Infotek for lack of jurisdiction.
