Here's a breakdown of the case Six Brothers Concrete Pumping, LLC v. Texas Workforce Commission and Martin Tomczak, decided by the Texas Supreme Court in 2025. You can read the full opinion by clicking here.
The dispute centers on $1,000 in unpaid wages claimed by Martin Tomczak against his former employer, Six Brothers Concrete Pumping. Tomczak won an administrative ruling from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) ordering payment. Six Brothers then filed a lawsuit to appeal, naming both the commission and Tomczak as defendants, but filed in the wrong county—Harris County instead of Montgomery County where Tomczak lived.
The trial court dismissed Six Brothers’s suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction due to the improper venue, a ruling affirmed by the court of appeals. The Texas Supreme Court denied review but a concurring justice (Young) wrote separately to highlight two key issues:
- Whether the lawsuit is truly "against" the commission (a government entity) for sovereign immunity purposes, since the commission is named only as a procedural party to enable judicial review of the administrative order. If the suit is not really against the government, then sovereign immunity and jurisdictional rules tied to government suits may not apply.
- Whether the mandatory venue provision requiring the suit to be filed in the claimant’s county is truly jurisdictional, meaning failure to comply strips the court of jurisdiction, or just a venue rule that can be waived or cured. This is unsettled law and has big implications for access to judicial review after administrative rulings.
The justice agreed the case was properly dismissed given current law but urged future courts to explore these thorny questions, as they affect many similar wage-claim disputes and the balance between administrative and judicial processes.
In sum, it's a relatively small dollar dispute raising important legal questions about sovereign immunity, venue as a jurisdictional requirement, and procedural access to appeals from administrative rulings.
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