Important New Court of Appeals Decision on School District Immunity

In Conroe ISD v. Osuna, No.  09-22-00424-CV (Tex. App. Beaumont – May 23, 2024), the Conroe Independent School District contended on appeal that the trial court below erred by refusing to dismiss the suit filed by its former employee for discharging her in response to her filing a worker’s compensation claim. In her suit, Osuna claimed she was fired by the District from her position as a custodian after she filed a worker’s compensation claim that was instituted in good faith against the District after being injured on the job.

The Beaumont Court of Appeals noted that Texas Labor Code Sec. 451.001 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees for filing “a workers compensation claim in good faith” or for instituting “in good faith a proceeding under [the Texas Workers Compensation Act].” Nonetheless, the doctrine of “[g]overnmental immunity generally deprives a trial court of subject-matter jurisdiction over suits against the government unless the state consents to the suit.”

Because school districts are local governmental entities of the state and not state agencies, the Legislature—except as to employees that Chapter 451 defines as first responders—has not waived the immunity that local governmental entities have to worker’s compensation retaliatory discharge claims or to claims employees may file against a local governmental entity alleging other discriminatory acts that allegedly violated section 451.001.

In reaching its conclusion that the Legislature waived the District’s immunity from suit, the trial court relied on a provision in Labor Code sections 504.002(10) and 504.002(a-1) that places a cap on the damages that a factfinder may award against “each person aggrieved by each single occurrence [for] a violation of” Chapter 451. But the court of appeals noted that that provision limits the damages recoverable against employers that are not immune from suit. It is silent as to whether the Legislature also intended for it to operate as a waiver of governmental immunity. Those two sections are the sole sections Osuna pleaded to support her claim of waiver, and the trial court specifically cited them in its ruling as the source of the Legislatively required statutory waiver.

The court of appeals emphasized that the trial court’s Order denying the District’s plea failed to refer to Labor Code section 504.002(c), which reflects the Legislature did not intend anything in section 504 to operate as a waiver, as it states:

Neither this chapter nor Subtitle A authorizes a cause of action or damages against a political subdivision or an employee of a political subdivision beyond the actions and damages authorized by Chapter 101, Civil Practice and Remedies Code[, the Texas Tort Claims Act].

Under the Tort Claims Act, the only waiver the Legislature created that applies to school districts of their immunity was to allow a claimant to file a claim against a school district for property damage, personal injury, or death when the claim arose from the district’s employee’s negligent operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle that resulted from an occurrence in which “the employee would be personally liable to the claimant according to Texas and law[.]

Consequently, the court of appeals held that the trial court erred by implying that the Legislature waived the immunity of the District to Osuna’s retaliatory discharge claim. They sustained the District’s sole issue, granted the District’s plea to the jurisdiction, and rendered an order dismissing Osuna’s suit.