On Appeal from the 134th Judicial District Court Dallas County
Before filing the lawsuit, the appellant was employed in the maintenance department of the appellee School District. The appellant sued the appellee setting forth various claims based on the termination of his employment. Among the causes of action asserted were claims under the Texas Whistleblower Act. The appellant claimed he was terminated in retaliation for reporting to the appellee's Office of Professional Responsibility violations of law by the appellee and its employees. The appellee answered and filed numerous motions in response to the petition. At issue was the appellee's “Third Plea to the Jurisdiction and Partial Motion to Dismiss Appellant's Claim Pursuant to the Texas Whistleblower Act.” In its third plea to the jurisdiction, the appellee claimed sovereign immunity. It contended the trial court had no subject matter jurisdiction over one of appellant's claims under the Whistleblower Act. Specifically, the appellee argued that the appellant's claim based on a 2008 e-mail exchange with an employee in its Office of Professional Responsibility did not fall within the act's waiver of sovereign immunity. The court granted the appellee's plea and dismissed the appellant's whistleblower claim with respect to his one report to the appellee's Office of Professional Responsibility. The appellate court noted that the appellant failed to raise a fact issue with respect to whether his allegations about the falsification of training records constituted a good faith report of a violation of an existing law as contemplated by the Whistleblower Act. Thus, the court concluded that the appellant failed to raise a fact issue with regard to the jurisdictional facts needed to support his whistleblower claim based on his one e-mail. The appellant presented no evidence to show that his e-mail sent to the Office of Professional Responsibility was a good faith report of a violation of law to an appropriate law enforcement authority. Because the appellant failed to provide evidence to support the elements of a violation of the Whistleblower Act, the appellee maintained its sovereign immunity and the trial court properly granted its plea to the jurisdiction with respect to the one report. Accordingly, the trial court's judgment was affirmed.