Say what you will about Macedonio Sanchez Guillen, but the man is determined -- he simply doesn’t give up. In 2023, and then again in 2025, he sued his lawyer, his former employer, and his workers’ compensation insurance carrier for things they allegedly did some two decades earlier.

It all started in 2001 when Guillen suffered a legitimate work injury while operating a backhoe that overturned. His employer carried workers’ compensation insurance, and the insurance carrier accepted his workers’ compensation claim and began paying benefits. A dispute arose, so Guillen retained an accomplished workers’ compensation attorney in 2003. That attorney obtained additional benefits for Guillen through the dispute resolution process at the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers Compensation, but he declined to sue the carrier in district court as Guillen demanded and withdrew from representation in December 2004.

But the attorney had not seen the last of Macedonio Sanchez Guillen. Not by a long shot.

Guillen waited. For nineteen years and four months he waited. And then, in April 2023, just about the time that Texas hill country bluebonnets were at their peak bloom, Guillen slapped a law suit on the attorney, his employer, and the carrier, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. In the petition, Guillen alleged that the three had perpetrated a continuous and premeditated conspiracy to violate his human rights for the previous 21 years.  A Travis County district court took no time in dismissing Guillen’s claims for lack of jurisdiction.

Guillen didn’t give up. Instead, he pivoted. He requested a Benefit Review Conference at the Division. But the Division denied his request, noting that he had not identified a violation of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act or Division rules. Guillen then asked the Division to schedule a Contested Case Hearing, but the Division denied that request, too, noting that compensability had not been denied and that Guillen had reached maximum medical improvement and had been assigned an impairment rating. So, Guillen repeated his request for a BRC, but the Division denied his request again. And then he repeated his request for a hearing, but the Division denied that request again too. Four requests, four denials.

At this point, most mortal men would have thrown in the towel. Not Guillen. He simply sued in district court again. This time he sought $480 million dollars, including $150 million dollars in punitive damages, $50 million dollars for medical expenses, and $50 million dollars for “moral damage” (whatever that is).  The district court promptly dismissed Guillen’s claims again. It dismissed his claims against the employer and carrier because he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies at the Division, and it dismissed his claims against the attorney because they were too old.

Bloody, but unbowed, Guillen appealed. And in a decision filed March 11, 2026, the Third Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal. Regarding Guillen’s claims against the employer and the carrier, the appeals court cited In re Crawford & Co. and agreed that Guillen failed to exhaust his administrative remedies at the Division. The court acknowledged that Guillen had requested dispute resolution at the Division four times and had been denied four times, but it concluded that Guillen had not shown that his complaints to the Division overlapped the claims he made in the district court. It also observed that Guillen had not explained “why he did not pursue an appeal and judicial review of those denials.” Regarding Guillen’s claims against the attorney, the appeals court agreed that the period of limitations had run.

But fear not. Guillen is not done. On March 19, 2026, he filed a motion for rehearing in the court of appeals and that motion is pending.