Katherine Mika v. Express Jet Airlines Inc--Appeal from 280th District Court of Harris County
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NO. 07-05-0146-CV IN THE COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS AT AMARILLO PANEL B MAY 4, 2006 ______________________________ KATHERINE MIKA, Appellant v. EXPRESS JET AIRLINES, INC., Appellee _________________________________ FROM THE 280TH DISTRICT COURT OF HARRIS COUNTY; NO. 2003-36,486; HON. TONY LINDSAY, PRESIDING _______________________________ Memorandum Opinion ______________________________ Before QUINN, C.J., and CAMPBELL and HANCOCK, JJ. Katherine Mika (Mika) appeals from a final judgment denying her recovery against Express Jet Airlines, Inc. (Express). Her sole issue concerns the trial court s decision to grant Express a partial summary judgment on the issue of negligent hiring, training, and supervision. We overrule the issue and affirm the judgment. Express raised two grounds, via its amended motion for summary judgment, attacking Mika s claim of negligent hiring, training, and supervision. One dealt with the federal preemption doctrine while the other dealt with the absence of any evidence illustrating that Express negligently hired, trained, or supervised the employee in question.1 Moreover, in granting the motion, the trial court did not specify upon which ground it relied. Consequently, Mika had the burden on appeal to illustrate why none of the grounds asserted by Express entitled the litigant to summary judgment. Lewis v. Adams, 979 S.W.2d 831, 833 (Tex. App. Houston [14th Dist.] 1998, no pet.). This she failed to do for no issue was raised on appeal encompassing the no-evidence ground. Mika having failed to attack both grounds asserted in support of summary judgment upon her claim of negligent hiring, training, and supervision, we overrule her issue and affirm the judgment. See id. (holding that the appellate court must affirm the summary judgment when the appellant fails to negate each ground upon which the judgment may have been granted). Brian Quinn Chief Justice 1 W e note and reject Mika s contention that Express failed to raise a no-evidence ground in its motion for summ ary judgment. Appearing in that m otio n is the follo wing passage: Because of this, the Plaintiff s claim s are p reem pted by Federa l Law. In addition, there is no evidence in this case of essential elements of Pla intiff s claims and therefore, your Defendant is entitled to a sum m ary judgm ent. . . . (Emph asis added ). Elsewhere in the same m otion appears the statement that: Plaintiff s negligent hiring claim is likewise, [sic] governed by Defendant s No Evidence M otion for Sum m ary Judgm ent. And, after describing the necessa ry elem ents of such a c ause, Exp ress stated that evidence s atisfying those elem ents is not present in this cas e. From those elements, one cannot but conclude that Express included a no-ev idence g roun d in its motion. 2
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
