Bell Helicopter GARA Bars Suit Mandamus Granted

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April 24, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

In Re Bell Helicopter Services Inc. and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.

Texas Supreme Court

• Citations: None known
• Docket Number: 24-0883
• Judges: Blacklock

• Disposition: The Court conditionally grants the writ of mandamus.

• Opinion

• Authorities (16)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (922)

• PDF

Disposition

The Court conditionally grants the writ of mandamus.

Lead Opinion

by Blacklock

Supreme Court of Texas
══════════
No. 24-0883
══════════

In re Bell Helicopter Services Inc. and Bell Helicopter Textron
Inc.,
Relators

═══════════════════════════════════════
On Petition for Writ of Mandamus
═══════════════════════════════════════

Argued December 3, 2025

CHIEF JUSTICE BLACKLOCK delivered the opinion of the Court.

The federal General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA) provides
that “no civil action for damages for death or injury . . . arising out of an
accident involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought against
the manufacturer” more than 18 years after the manufacturer delivers
the aircraft to its first purchaser. General Aviation Revitalization Act
of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-298, §§ 2(a), 3(3), 108 Stat. 1552, 1552–53
(codified at 49 U.S.C. § 40101 note). If, however, a manufacturer
replaces or adds a “new” part, and that part is later “alleged to have
caused” the accident, then the clock runs from the date of the
“replacement or addition.” Id. § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at 1552.
This case involves a helicopter manufactured and delivered in
1997. Twenty years later, an engine panel original to the aircraft came
loose and caused the helicopter to crash, killing the pilot. The pilot’s
family sued the manufacturer. They claim the aircraft’s flight manual
failed to adequately warn about the dangers of flying with a loose panel.
The defendants contend that GARA bars the suit. The plaintiffs respond
that the 18-year clock restarted because the manufacturer revised the
flight manual several times in the years before the crash.
We conclude that Congress has barred this suit. GARA’s 18-year
clock restarts only when a “new” part is “alleged to have caused” the
accident. Id. None of the revisions to the manual on which the plaintiffs
rely fits that description. The alleged defect in the manual has not
changed since the helicopter was delivered in 1997, and the continued
omission of the disputed warning across subsequent versions of the
manual does not amount to a new part that restarts the 18-year clock.
Because nothing the manufacturer changed about the aircraft or its
manual in the 18 years before the accident is alleged to have caused the
accident, GARA bars the claim.
As in prior cases, mandamus relief from the legally erroneous
denial of summary judgment is available to end a lawsuit when
Congress has determined that no such suit “may be brought.” In re
Academy, Ltd., 625 S.W.3d 19 (Tex. 2021); In re Facebook, Inc., 625
S.W.3d 80 (Tex. 2021) (Rule 91a). That is again the case here. The
petition for writ of mandamus is conditionally granted.

I.

The helicopter in question was manufactured in 1997 by Bell
Helicopter Textron Inc. and was delivered to its first purchaser that

2
same year.1 The aircraft eventually made its way to Westwind
Helicopters, Inc., which used it to transport workers to and from offshore
oil platforms.
Matthew Kawamura was one of Westwind’s pilots. On
February 27, 2017, Kawamura flew a crew to an offshore platform in the
Gulf of Mexico. After landing, he discovered that the left-side engine
cowling—a hinged panel covering the engine compartment—had come
loose. Two of the fasteners that held it in place were damaged.
Kawamura reported the problem to Westwind. Westwind initially
agreed to send a mechanic, but because no mechanic was readily
available, Kawamura was directed to “chance it coming in for repairs.”
Westwind told him to fly alone. During the flight, the loose cowling
allegedly detached from the aircraft, struck the tail rotor, and sent the
helicopter into an uncontrollable descent. Kawamura died in the crash.
Kawamura’s family sued Bell and Westwind in October 2017.
Bell answered that the claims against it were “barred by the provisions
of the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994.” The case then
stalled for several years pending investigations and inspections.
In February 2024, the plaintiffs produced expert reports that, for
the first time, suggested a theory of Bell’s liability, notwithstanding
GARA, for the failure of the twenty-year-old aircraft. The theory focused
not on any mechanical defect—the engine cowling and its fasteners were
original to the aircraft—but on the flight manual. The helicopter came

“Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.” is listed on the manufacturing
1

documents. The family also sued Bell Helicopter Services Inc. We refer to the
defendants collectively as Bell.

3
with a flight manual that includes a preflight checklist. The checklist
instructs pilots to confirm, among other things, that the left-side
“Engine cowling” is “Secured.” But according to the plaintiffs, that
instruction was not enough. The manual should have also included an
explicit warning that failing to follow the instruction could be
dangerous, as it does for other items like removing the rotor tie-downs.
With that warning, the theory goes, Westwind would have grasped the
life-threatening danger of a loose cowling before instructing Kawamura
to fly.
Bell moved for summary judgment based on GARA, under which
“no civil action for damages for death or injury to persons . . . may be
brought against the manufacturer” more than 18 years after the
manufacturer’s initial delivery of the aircraft. GARA § 2(a), 108 Stat. at
1552. The plaintiffs responded that the 18-year period had restarted
because Bell revised the flight manual several times in the years before
the crash.
The parties’ dispute under GARA turns on the revision history of
the flight manual, specifically the preflight-check subsection. Bell first
issued the manual in 1996 and has since revised it periodically.
Between 2002 and 2016, Bell made fifteen sets of revisions to the
manual, including the following four revisions to the preflight-check
subsection: a 2011 revision to a graphic depicting the preflight sequence;
a non-substantive 2011 revision to the left-side fuselage check;2 a 2013

2 Per the manual: “A revised page with only a vertical line next to the

page number indicates that text has shifted or that non-technical correction(s)
were made on that page.” The unspecified revision to the left-side fuselage

4
revision to the oil-level check; and a 2013 revision to the combustion-
case check. It is undisputed that none of these revisions had anything
to do with the left-side engine cowling alleged to have caused the crash.
Three more material facts about the manual are undisputed.
First, every version of the preflight-check subsection has included the
same instruction about checking the left-side engine cowling: “k. Engine
cowling — Secured.” Second, no version has ever included an additional
warning against flying with a loose cowling. As the plaintiffs put it in a
summary judgment response below: “The Flight Manual was defective
when it left Bell’s facilities because it lacked a warning that the
helicopter should not be flown when the access door and/or engine
cowling are not secured.” “While the Flight Manual has undergone
various revisions since it was originally issued,” the filing continues, the
instruction about “the engine cowling being secured ha[s] not undergone
revisions.” Third, Bell has not added or replaced any relevant
mechanical component, so the analysis under GARA focuses exclusively
on the flight manual.
The district court denied Bell’s summary judgment motion
without explanation. Bell sought mandamus relief in the court of
appeals, which denied relief without a substantive opinion. 719 S.W.3d
398, 399 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2024).

check—the portion encompassing the engine-cowling instruction—is indicated
with a vertical line next to the page number.

5
II.
A.

Though couched as a “limitation period,” §§ 2(a), 3(3), GARA
operates as a “classic statute of repose” by barring claims that arise too
long after a fixed date. Lyon v. Agusta S.P.A., 252 F.3d 1078, 1084 (9th
Cir. 2001). The statute sets the fixed date as the manufacturer’s
delivery of the aircraft, and it sets the repose period at 18 years. After
that period, “no civil action for [personal injury] . . . arising out of an
accident involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought against
the manufacturer . . . in its capacity as a manufacturer.” GARA § 2(a),
108 Stat. at 1552. The relevant statutory text provides:
(a) . . . . no civil action for damages for death or injury to
persons or damage to property arising out of an accident
involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought
against the manufacturer of the aircraft . . . in its capacity
as a manufacturer if the accident occurred—
(1) after the applicable limitation period beginning on
[the date of relevant delivery] . . . .
....
(3) the term “limitation period” means 18 years with
respect to general aviation aircraft and the components,
systems, subassemblies, and other parts of such
aircraft . . . .
Id. §§ 2(a), 3(3), 108 Stat. at 1552–53.
The statute also provides that if a manufacturer replaces or adds
a new part, a fresh 18-year period begins for that part—but only if the
part “is alleged to have caused” the accident. Id. § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at
1552. Under this provision, no civil action may be brought if the accident
occurred

6
(2) with respect to any new component, system,
subassembly, or other part which replaced another
component, system, subassembly, or other part originally
in, or which was added to, the aircraft, and which is alleged
to have caused such death, injury, or damage, after the
applicable limitation period beginning on the date of
completion of the replacement or addition.
Id. This is often called GARA’s “rolling provision.” E.g., Caldwell v.
Enstrom Helicopter Corp., 230 F.3d 1155, 1156 (9th Cir. 2000).
GARA “supersedes any State law to the extent that such law
permits a civil action described in subsection (a) to be brought after the
applicable limitation period for such civil action.” GARA § 2(d), 108
Stat. at 1553. The statute contains other limitations and exceptions, but
none is relevant here. See id. § 2(b)(1)–(4), 108 Stat. at 1552–53.

B.

We begin with what is undisputed. This is a “civil action for
damages for death . . . arising out of an accident involving a general
aviation aircraft.” Id. § 2(a), 108 Stat. at 1552. Bell delivered the
aircraft to its first purchaser in 1997. The accident happened in 2017,
twenty years later. Thus, unless GARA’s 18-year clock was reset under
the rolling provision, “no civil action [like this one] . . . may be brought.”
Id. No one contends that the clock restarted because of any change to
the engine cowling itself—the physical component that came loose and
allegedly caused the crash. That part was original to the aircraft.

7
The plaintiffs’ theory of liability rests instead on a different “part”
of the aircraft: the flight manual.3 The theory is that the manual’s
preflight checklist—a list of things to check before flying—was deficient
because, although it told pilots to confirm that the engine cowling was
secured, it did not also warn them not to fly if the cowling was not
secured. Because Bell revised the preflight checklist several times in
the years before the accident (though never the cowling instruction), the
plaintiffs contend the 18-year clock was reset under GARA’s rolling
provision. As explained below, we disagree.
In an effort to trigger the rolling provision, the plaintiffs point to
several revisions Bell made to the preflight-check subsection of the flight
manual in the years before the accident: a 2011 revision to the preflight-
check graphic, a non-substantive 2011 revision to the left-side fuselage
check, a 2013 revision to the instruction for checking the transmission’s
oil level, and a 2013 revision to the instruction for checking the
combustion case. The theory is that the preflight-check subsection as a
whole was “replaced” by a “new” subsection containing these revisions.

3 Bell does not dispute that the flight manual qualifies as a “component,

system, subassembly, or other part” of the aircraft. For many readers of the
statute, the words “component, system, subassembly, or other part” may bring
to mind the physical, mechanical elements of the aircraft itself but not
necessarily the content of the written instructions accompanying the aircraft.
Nevertheless, the federal courts have largely accepted the notion of a flight
manual as an aircraft “part.” See, e.g., Caldwell, 230 F.3d at 1157; Lyon, 252
F.3d at 1088; Crouch v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 720 F.3d 333, 341–43 (6th Cir.
2013). Although we are not required to follow the precedent of federal courts
of appeals on the meaning of a federal statute, we need not explore the question
here because it is not in dispute. We will accept, for purposes of this opinion,
the parties’ shared premise that the flight manual should be treated as one of
the aircraft’s “parts” under GARA.

8
This new, replacement subsection—still lacking an adequate warning,
as it had all along—is what is “alleged to have caused” the accident. The
rolling provision therefore applies, as the plaintiffs see it, and the repose
period must be calculated from the latest revision to the manual, not
from the initial delivery of the aircraft.
An implicit premise of this argument is that we should treat the
preflight-check subsection—or perhaps the whole manual—as a single,
undifferentiated “part” or “system,” such that revising anything within
it restarts the clock for everything within it. In other words, if the
plaintiffs are correct, then changing one sentence in the manual does
not merely replace that sentence; it replaces the entire manual, or at
least the entire section of the manual containing the sentence. We do
not understand the rolling provision to operate that way. Nor has any
other state or federal court.
To begin with, GARA’s text asks whether a “new component,
system, subassembly, or other part” has replaced another and is “alleged
to have caused” the harm. GARA § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at 1552. The
statute thus requires identifying the specific “component, system,
subassembly, or other part” that is both “new” and “alleged to have
caused” the injury. It does not permit the plaintiff to point to a collection
or category of parts, some of which are “new” and some other of which is
“alleged to have caused” the injury.
The text makes this conclusion unavoidable, we think. Start with
the enumeration of what must be replaced. Congress did not simply say
“part”; it listed “component, system, subassembly, or other part”—terms
that reflect different levels of specificity in how machines are organized.

9
To “replace” is “to put something new in the place of” something else,
“esp[ecially] as a substitute or successor.” Replace, MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S
COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY (10th ed. 1994). Thus, a new component takes
the place of the old component; a new system substitutes for the old
system; a new part replaces the old part; and so on. Replacing one small
part of a larger component or system does not replace the entire
component or system containing the part. A new bolt merely replaces
an old bolt. It does not yield a new engine that replaces the old engine.
In other words, as one court put it, the rolling provision’s text leaves “no
room to argue that replacement of a few parts of a larger system starts
the rolling limitation period anew for all parts in the larger system.”
Hiser v. Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., 4 Cal. Rptr. 3d 249, 257 (Ct. App.
2003).
Given the text, it is perhaps unsurprising that this demand for
particularity—identifying the specific part that is both new and
allegedly at fault—is a consistent theme in the GARA caselaw, for
manuals and machinery alike. As the Michigan Court of Appeals aptly
put it, GARA caselaw “focuses on the component that allegedly caused
the crash, not the larger part that encompasses many smaller
components, one of which was the allegedly deficient component.”
Hinkle v. Cessna Aircraft Co., No. 247099, 2004 WL 2413768, at *8
(Mich. Ct. App. Oct. 28, 2004) (collecting cases); see also Pridgen v.
Parker Hannifin Corp., 916 A.2d 619, 623 n.3 (Pa. 2007) (“[O]ther
jurisdictions have also reasoned that GARA’s period of repose is not
displaced with respect to entire aircraft systems . . . by the replacement
of component parts of such system.” (collecting cases)).

10
The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Caldwell is instructive. 230 F.3d
1155. There, a helicopter crashed after running out of usable fuel. Id.
at 1156. The plaintiffs alleged that the flight manual was defective
because it failed to warn that the last two gallons of gas in the tank could
not be used. Id. The manufacturer revised the manual several times
over the years, and the plaintiffs argued that those revisions rendered
the entire manual a “new” system or part under the rolling provision.
Id.
As discussed above, the Ninth Circuit accepted the proposition,
uncontested here, that a revised flight manual could qualify as an
aircraft “part.” Id. at 1157. As the court then explained, “if [the
manufacturer] substantively altered, or deleted, a warning about the
[allegedly defective part] from the manual within the last 18 years, and
it is alleged that the revision or omission is the proximate cause of the
accident, then GARA does not bar the action.” Id. at 1158. But a
“revision to the manual does not implicate GARA’s rolling
provision . . . unless the revised part ‘is alleged to have caused [the]
death, injury, or damage.’” Id. (quoting GARA § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at
1552). So revisions to unrelated parts of the manual do not trigger the
rolling provision. Id. The court illustrated the point with an analogy:
“Just as the installation of a new rotor blade does not start the 18-year
period of repose anew for purposes of an action for damages due to a
faulty fuel system, a revision to any part of the manual except that
which describes the fuel system would be irrelevant here.” Id. The court
thus remanded with the instruction that “[i]f, within the last 18 years,
[the manufacturer] substantively revised, or deleted, the instructions in

11
the flight manual that describe or warn about the fuel tanks, and if
Plaintiffs allege that those revisions or deletions caused the deaths,
injuries, and damage at issue, then Plaintiffs can state a claim.” Id.
(emphasis added).
The Sixth Circuit’s 2013 decision in Crouch v. Honeywell
International, Inc. is similarly persuasive. 720 F.3d 333. A plane
crashed after a part detached from the engine; the plaintiffs alleged that
the manual was defective because it failed to warn that the part might
come loose. Id. at 336. The manufacturer had revised the manual
several times, including as recently as four years before the accident.
Id. at 336, 342. But the plaintiffs could not point to any specific revision
that bore on the alleged defect. Id. at 341–43. Instead, their theory, like
the one advanced here, was one of continued omission: the manual had
never contained the warning they said it should have, and no revision
ever changed that.
The Sixth Circuit held that this was fatal to the claim. The rolling
provision, the court explained, requires a “causal nexus between the
replaced part and the complained of injuries”; absent that causal
connection, the rolling provision “does not operate to trigger a new
period of repose.” Id. at 343. For example, the rolling provision “cannot
be reasonably construed as meaning that the 18-year period of repose
for the entire engine is reset every time a single sub-part is replaced.”
Id. Applying this logic to manuals, the court held that “the facts must
show (1) that [the manufacturer] made a substantive change in (i.e.,
alteration of or deletion from) the [manual] instructions relating to [the
allegedly defective component], and (2) that the change was the

12
proximate cause of the crash.” Id. The plaintiffs’ theory—that the
manual should have contained a warning that it had never included—
did not satisfy that standard. Id.
Hiser v. Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. confirms the point in the
context of physical components. 4 Cal. Rptr. 3d 249. The plaintiffs
argued that modifications to a helicopter’s fuel-transfer system—
relocating some components, replacing others—should restart the clock
for the entire system. Id. at 255–56. The court rejected the argument
based on the rolling provision’s text. “[T]he fuel transfer system was not
entirely replaced,” the court explained; “[i]t was redesigned and
modified by the relocation and replacement of fewer than all
components.” Id. at 257. And because “replacement” requires “two
acts: removal of the old and substitution of the new,” the court held that
“for those parts, components, or subassemblies that have not been
replaced, a new limitation period does not commence.” Id. More
generally, the court concluded, “the replacement of less than all the
components of a system does not trigger a new limitation period under
GARA with respect to defects in components of the system not replaced.”
Id. at 258.
The principle that emerges from these and other cases is
consistent: Replacing some parts or components of a system does not
restart the repose period for the entire system.4 Under this approach,

4 See also, e.g., Sheesley v. Cessna Aircraft Co., No. 4:02-CV-04185, 2006

WL 1084103, at *11 (D.S.D. Apr. 20, 2006) (“Teledyne only manufactured the
engines, and even if the wastegate elbow is considered a component part of the
engine, this does not roll the repose period applicable to the entire engine.”);
La Haye v. Galvin Flying Serv., Inc., No. 2:01-CV-00982, slip op. at 7–8 (W.D.

13
which is firmly grounded in both the text of GARA and the cases
applying it, the plaintiffs’ theory of liability fails. The flight manual is
not a single undifferentiated unit. It is organized into sections, which
are divided into subsections, one of which is the preflight-check
subsection—which is itself divided into different areas of the aircraft,
different subareas, and ultimately into individual instructions.
The revisions the plaintiffs identify—to the preflight-check
graphic, the left-side fuselage check, the transmission-oil instruction,
and the combustion-case instruction—have nothing to do with the part
of the manual “alleged to have caused” the accident. That part is the
engine-cowling instruction, which was never revised. Revising other
parts of the preflight-check subsection no more restarts the clock for the
engine-cowling instruction than replacing one engine bolt restarts the
clock for an accident caused by another bolt elsewhere in the engine.
Put differently, the plaintiffs must identify a “new” part that is
“alleged to have caused” the accident. GARA § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at 1552.
In this case, they can do one or the other, but not both. The engine-
cowling instruction is alleged to have caused the accident. But it is not
new. The revised instructions are new. But they are not alleged to have
caused anything. The rolling provision does not permit a plaintiff to
cobble together its claim in this way.

Wash. May 2, 2003) (“Congress’ intent to provide repose for aircraft
manufacturers would be effectively nullified, however, if plaintiffs could lump
each new part into larger systems for purposes of GARA’s rolling provision. If
that were the case, [original parts] . . . could become the basis of a suit decades
later, not because they were new or had been altered in the last 18 years, but
because another part in the same system had been replaced.”), aff’d, 144 F.
App’x 631 (9th Cir. 2005).

14
The plaintiffs cite no case construing the rolling provision’s text
to support the level of generality and aggregation their theory demands.
Courts construing the rolling provision have instead uniformly held that
it requires what the plaintiffs cannot provide: identification of a specific
part that is both new and alleged to have caused the harm.
Reading GARA as other courts have read it, grounded in its text,
we conclude that the 18-year repose period bars the plaintiffs’ claims.
The 18-year clock began when Bell delivered the helicopter to its first
purchaser in 1997. The accident happened in 2017, twenty years later.
Nothing alleged to have happened in the interim triggered the rolling
provision. Bell was therefore entitled to summary judgment.5

5 The cases suggest an additional, related way of describing the defect

in the plaintiffs’ claim: An ongoing failure to warn is a pure omission that
cannot validly be recast as something “new” or as having “replaced” any
existing component or part of the aircraft. “Courts of other jurisdictions that
have addressed claims of failure to warn asserted against a manufacturer
protected by GARA have uniformly determined that GARA bars a claim for
failure to warn outside the eighteen-year period.” Fletcher v. Cessna Aircraft
Co., 991 A.2d 859, 864 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2010) (collecting cases). In
Crouch, for example, the Sixth Circuit observed that “[p]laintiffs find
themselves in the awkward position of arguing that an omission, something
that does not exist, should be treated as something that does exist and was
added on as a replacement ‘part of the aircraft.’” 720 F.3d at 343 (quoting
GARA § 2(a)(2), 108 Stat. at 1552). In other words, the plaintiffs’ failure-to-
warn theory “ask[ed] the court to treat something that was not added as though
it were something that was added and as though this fictional something
caused the crash.” Id. The court declined the invitation. Id. at 342; see also
Lyon, 252 F.3d at 1088; Schiewe v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 546 P.3d 234, 243
(Okla. 2024); Tillman v. Raytheon Co., 430 S.W.3d 698, 708 (Ark. 2013); Alter
v. Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., 944 F. Supp. 531, 541 (S.D. Tex. 1996); Croman
Corp. v. Gen. Elec. Co., No. 2:05-CV-00575, 2006 WL 3201099, at *5 (E.D. Cal.
Nov. 2, 2006) (“Failure to warn claims are usually barred by GARA.”).

15
C.

The only remaining question is whether mandamus relief should
issue to correct the clear error of law described above. In concluding
that it should, we need not break new ground or exhaustively explore
the contours of modern mandamus practice. Conditionally granting the
writ in this case comports comfortably with our similar decisions in In
re Academy, Ltd., 625 S.W.3d 19 (Tex. 2021), and In re Facebook, Inc.,
625 S.W.3d 80 (Tex. 2021).
“‘[M]andamus is a discretionary writ,’ the availability of which
depends in part on our equitable judgment as to whether mandamus
relief is an ‘efficient manner of resolving the dispute.’” Facebook, 625
S.W.3d at 86 n.2 (quoting In re Blevins, 480 S.W.3d 542, 544 (Tex.
2013)). As a discretionary writ, mandamus relief is never available as a
pure matter of right or entitlement. In re Prudential Ins. Co. of Am.,
148 S.W.3d 124, 138 (Tex. 2004). Even in two cases involving the same
clear abuse of discretion, determining whether appellate remedies are
adequate “depends heavily on the circumstances presented” and
requires a “careful balance of jurisprudential considerations.” Id. at
136–37. Familiar equitable principles, such as laches or clean hands,
also come into play. See, e.g., Rivercenter Assocs. v. Rivera, 858 S.W.2d
366, 367 (Tex. 1993); Indus. Found. of the S. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd.,
540 S.W.2d 668, 674 (Tex. 1976). Thus, a decision granting mandamus
relief in one case does not mean mandamus will automatically issue
whenever a similar right or statute is at stake.
It does not follow, however, that precedent plays no role. To the
contrary, any exercise of judicial discretion should be informed by the

16
experience of the past, even when not controlled by it. In two recent
decisions—In re Academy, Ltd. and In re Facebook, Inc.—we granted
mandamus to enforce federal statutes that, like GARA, prescribe when
civil actions “may” or “may not” be “brought.” 625 S.W.3d 19; 625 S.W.3d
80. In both cases, we concluded that an ordinary appeal could not
adequately preserve the rights those statutes conferred. The same is
true in this case.
We have often said that “mandamus is generally unavailable
when a trial court denies summary judgment.” In re McAllen Med. Ctr.,
Inc., 275 S.W.3d 458, 465 (Tex. 2008). Yet as both Academy and
Facebook demonstrated, this generalization “is not, and cannot be,
absolute.” Academy, 625 S.W.3d at 32; see also Facebook, 625 S.W.3d at
86–87 (Rule 91a). Mandamus review of summary judgment decisions
may, in “exceptional cases,” be “essential to preserve important
substantive and procedural rights from impairment or loss” and to
“spare private parties and the public the time and money utterly wasted
enduring eventual reversal of improperly conducted proceedings.”
Prudential, 148 S.W.3d at 136. This is such a case.
In Academy, we concluded that “requiring Academy to ‘proceed[]
to trial—regardless of the outcome—would defeat the substantive right’
granted by the [Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act].” 625
S.W.3d at 35 (quoting McAllen, 275 S.W.3d at 465). In part because
Congress had barred the action from being brought at all, an ordinary
appeal did not provide an adequate remedy. Id. Facebook, delivered the
same day, reached the same conclusion. We considered section 230 of
the Communications Decency Act, which provides that “[n]o cause of

17
action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State
or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” 625 S.W.3d at 83
(quoting 47 U.S.C. § 230 (e)(3)). “Just as the PLCAA provides that
certain actions ‘may not be brought,’” we explained, “section 230
contains a materially identical instruction that ‘[n]o cause of action may
be brought.’” Id. at 87. “The two provisions are indistinguishable with
respect to whether they create a substantive right to be free of litigation,
not just a right to be free of liability at the end of litigation.” Id.
The same is true of GARA’s statute of repose, which instructs that
“no civil action for [personal injury] . . . arising out of an accident
involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought against the
manufacturer” after the 18-year repose period. GARA § 2(a), 108 Stat.
at 1552 (emphases added). The focus is on the action itself—whether it
“may be brought”—not on whether the defendant will ultimately be
liable or whether the plaintiff will recover. The text is materially
identical to the statutes we recognized in Academy and Facebook as
conferring rights that warranted mandamus relief in the circumstances
of those cases.
The plaintiffs point out that GARA’s operative provision—
limiting when an action “may be brought”—uses language found in
many conventional statutes of limitation and that Congress may have
simply intended to erect a bar to a plaintiff’s ultimate recovery, not a
right of the defendant to avoid litigation altogether. Academy and
Facebook counsel otherwise. But GARA’s preemption clause offers an
additional counterpoint. The statute “supersedes any State law to the
extent that such law permits a civil action . . . to be brought after the

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applicable limitation period.” GARA § 2(d), 108 Stat. at 1553. The
presumption against preemption, “rooted in respect for the States as
independent sovereigns,” assumes that “Congress does not cavalierly
pre-empt state laws.” Tarrant Reg’l Water Dist. v. Herrmann, 569 U.S.
614, 631 n.10 (2013) (citation modified). Thus, in defining the extent to
which state authority is displaced, Congress is presumed to speak
carefully and deliberately. And here, Congress chose to preempt state
laws that “permit” actions to be “brought,” not laws that permit liability
to be imposed or judgments to be entered. The preemption clause, like
the substantive bar, thus seems to be concerned in part with whether
litigation occurs—not merely with how it ends.
A party wrongly forced to defend an action that Congress has said
may not be “brought”—and that no state law may “permit[]” to be
“brought”—has suffered an “impairment or loss” of its federal rights that
generally cannot be remedied by an appeal following trial and judgment
in a case no Texas court should have entertained in the first place.
Prudential, 148 S.W.3d at 136. Consistent with Academy and Facebook,
we conclude that Bell lacks an adequate remedy by appeal under these
circumstances. That conclusion, coupled with the clear abuse of
discretion described above, makes mandamus relief appropriate in this
case to correct the improper denial of summary judgment.

III.

The petition for writ of mandamus is conditionally granted, and
the district court is directed to grant Bell’s motion for summary
judgment. The writ will issue only if the court does not do so.

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James D. Blacklock
Chief Justice

OPINION DELIVERED: April 24, 2026

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