Haseloff-Bunker v. City of Angleton et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
GALVESTON DIVISION
KANDICE HASELOFF-BUNKER,
Plaintiff.
V.
CITY OF ANGLETON, et al.,
Defendants.
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CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:26-cv-00024
OPINION AND ORDER
Pending before me is Plaintiff’s Motion to Deem Original Petition Filed as of
Original Transmission Date (September 15, 2025) and to Direct the [State] District
Clerk to File-Stamp and Docket Accordingly. Dkt. 24. The motion is granted in part
and denied in part.
The facts underlying this motion are not in dispute. On September 15, 2025,
Plaintiff Kandice Haseloff-Bunker submitted her Original Petition, an affidavit of
inability to pay, and a request for citation to the Brazoria County District Court
through Texas’s mandatory electronic filing system. See Dkt. 27-2 at 12–13. In her
Original Petition, Haseloff-Bunker asserts a myriad of state and federal claims
against the City of Angleton arising out of her employment with the City. The
Brazoria County District Clerk rejected the filing because of an error in the citation
request. See id. at 13. On December 23, 2025, a paralegal working for Haseloff-
Bunker’s lawyer contacted the Brazoria County District Clerk’s Office to check on
the status of the filing. She “was informed by a representative of the clerk’s office
that the filling had been rejected/returned.” Id. at 2. The paralegal refiled the
Original Petition, affidavit of inability to pay, and request for citation that same
day, December 23, 2025.
Haseloff-Bunker argues that her Original Petition should be deemed filed as
of September 15, 2025, the date her representatives transmitted the Original
United States District Court
Southern District of Texas
ENTERED
May 18, 2026
Nathan Ochsner, Clerk
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Petition to the electronic filing service provider (“EFSP”). 1 For support, Haseloff-
Bunker turns to Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(5), which states that “[a]n
electronically filed document is deemed filed when transmitted to the filing party’s
electronic filing service provider.” This rule is based on the premise that “[i]t would
be fundamentally unfair for a filing which appeared to be timely at the time it was
filed to be rendered untimely after-the-fact because [of circumstances outside the
filing party’s control].” Gates v. McDonald, 674 S.W.3d 420, 427 (Tex. App.—
Eastland 2023, pet. denied).
It is clear to me that the Brazoria County District Clerk’s office improperly
rejected 	Haseloff-Bunker’s 	September 	15, 	2025 	filing. 	Texas 	Rule 	of 	Civil
Procedure 21(f)(11) provides that a “clerk may not refuse to file a document that
fails to confirm with this rule.” Instead, the clerk must “identify the error to be
corrected and state a deadline for the party to resubmit the document in a
conforming format.” Tex. R. Civ. P. 21(f)(11). Here, the clerk incorrectly rejected
the filing and failed to provide a deadline for Haseloff-Bunker to resubmit the
documents. Nonetheless, Haseloff-Bunker’s legal team reached out to the clerk’s
office a little more than three months after the original filing, learned why the
documents had been rejected, and resubmitted the original petition and related
paperwork.
The City argues that Haseloff-Bunker’s request to deem the state-court
petition filed as of September 15, 2025 “should be denied because she lacked
diligence as a matter of law in attempting to cure any E-filing error by not
investigating its status or attempting to procure service of process for over three
months.” Dkt. 25 at 1. I agree that Haseloff-Bunker could have—and should have—
1 Because an individual who receives a right-to-sue letter from the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission has 90 days to file a civil action under Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), the date Haseloff-Bunker filed her lawsuit
is critical. If I determine Haseloff-Bunker did not file her lawsuit until December 23,
2025, her Title VII, ADA, and ADEA claims would unquestionably be time-barred.
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reached out to the clerk’s office sooner to check on the filing’s status. Even so,
“[o]nce a party has satisfied his duty to put a legal instrument in the custody and
the control of the court clerk, he should not be penalized for errors made by the
court clerk.” Warner v. Glass, 135 S.W.3d 681, 684 (Tex. 2004).
As the El Paso Court of Appeals recently noted:
The text of Rule 21(f)(11) does not impose a reasonable diligence
requirement or reasonable time requirement for correcting non-
conforming documents when the clerk fails to state a deadline, and we
are disinclined to graft one onto the rule by judicial fiat. Nor do we
need to decide whether there is an outer limit for how long a party has
to correct non-conforming documents. Of course, if the clerk does
provide a deadline as the rule contemplates, this Court has already
written that a party must meet that deadline to obtain the original
filing date. When the clerk fulfills its role, the issue here should never
arise. And if there is a needed backstop to what the rule already
provides, we view the Texas Supreme Court's rule making process as
a better avenue for addressing this kind of issue.
Valadez v. El Paso Cent. Appraisal Dist., No. 08-23-00267-CV, 2024 WL 3226154,
at *6 (Tex. App.—El Paso June 28, 2024, no pet.) (cleaned up). I agree with this
reasoning. I am not going to be first judge—state or federal—to construe the Texas
Rules of Civil Procedure as imposing an implied reasonable diligence requirement
for correcting non-conforming documents when a state district clerk fails to
provide a deadline to resubmit the corrected documents. As written, the Texas
Rules of Civil Procedure require me to deem Haseloff-Bunker’s Original Petition
filed on September 15, 2025.
The City spills much ink insisting that Haseloff-Bunker lacked diligence in
service. In making this argument, the City notes that “[i]n Texas, not only must a
suit be timely filed, but there must also be a bona fide intention that service of
process be issued and served, and due diligence must be exercised in such regard.”
Dkt. 25 at 8 (quoting Echols v. Strickland, 92 F.R.D. 75, 76 (S.D. Tex. 1981)). That
might be true, but it is of no moment to the present motion. At this time, Haseloff-
Bunker is simply asking that I deem her Original Petition filed on September 15,
2025—the date it was transmitted to the EFSP. In its recently-filed motion for
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partial judgment on the pleadings, the City raises the argument that the case
should be dismissed because Haseloff-Bunker lacked diligence in service. I will
address the merits of the City’s position after the motion is fully briefed.
Finally, Haseloff-Bunker asks me to direct the Brazoria County District Clerk
to file-stamp the Original Petition with a September 15, 2025 date, and docket
accordingly. This is something I cannot do. “Federal courts have no power to direct
state judicial officials in the performance of their functions.” Long v. Wright, 103
F. App’x. 800, 801 (5th Cir. 2004).
In summary, I grant Haseloff-Bunker’s request that I deem the Original
Petition filed as of September 15, 2025. I deny Haseloff-Bunker’s request that I
direct the Brazoria County District Clerk to file-stamp and docket the Original
Petition as filed on September 15, 2025.
SIGNED this 	day of May 2026.
______________________________
ANDREW M. EDISON
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
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