Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Reginald Grant worked at an Amazon fulfillment center in Texas from October 2018 until his resignation in August 2022. During and after his employment, he pursued multiple rounds of litigation against Amazon. In his first federal lawsuit (Grant I), he alleged age discrimination under the ADEA — claiming denial of promotions, reduced overtime, and delayed CDL training — but the district court entered summary judgment for Amazon and the Fifth Circuit dismissed his appeal as frivolous. In a parallel state-court action (Grant II), a jury ultimately awarded Grant $945.51 on breach of contract and fraud claims related to an unpaid 60-cent per hour shift differential, after the Texas Court of Appeals reduced a larger jury verdict.
While those appeals were still pending, Grant filed this third lawsuit in state court in July 2024, removed to the Northern District of Texas. He reasserted ADEA discrimination and retaliation claims, breach of contract, and fraud, and added new claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), defamation, and “loss of use/loss of enjoyment.” Amazon moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Grant later sought leave to amend, proposing to drop some claims and add negligent retention and ADEA retaliation claims, but without supplying new factual allegations. In July 2025, the district court dismissed all claims with prejudice and denied leave to amend.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court in full. The court held that Grant’s ADEA, breach of contract, and fraud claims were barred by res judicata: the ADEA claims were precluded by the final judgment in Grant I, which involved the same parties, the same court, and the same nucleus of operative facts; the contract and fraud claims were precluded under Texas res judicata principles by the final state-court judgment in Grant II, which Grant himself conceded had already resolved those claims.
As for Grant’s remaining common-law claims, the court affirmed dismissal on multiple independent grounds. The IIED and defamation claims were preempted by Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code, which provides the exclusive state-law remedy for employment discrimination and retaliation and bars overlapping common-law claims where Grant pleaded no additional facts independent of his discrimination allegations. The IIED claim independently failed because the alleged conduct — age-related comments, unfair scheduling, delayed training, and false accusations — did not approach the “extreme and outrageous” standard required under Texas law. The defamation claim was separately time-barred: Grant’s suit, filed in July 2024, came nearly two years after the allegedly defamatory August 2022 email, well outside Texas’s one-year limitations period. Finally, “loss of use” and “loss of enjoyment” are not standalone causes of action under Texas law, only measures of damages.
The court also affirmed denial of leave to amend, finding no abuse of discretion. Grant waited eight months after filing and three months after Amazon’s motion to dismiss before seeking to amend, offered no explanation for the delay, and proposed no new factual allegations — only a repackaging of existing claims. His belated proposal on appeal to add a former manager’s name was forfeited by not being raised in the district court. Because the defects were legal rather than merely pleading failures, the court agreed that no amendment could cure them, making dismissal with prejudice appropriate.
Key Takeaways
- Res judicata bars relitigation not only of claims actually decided in prior proceedings but also claims that could have been raised — successive lawsuits against the same employer arising from the same employment relationship are especially vulnerable to preclusion.
- Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code preempts common-law IIED and defamation claims that overlap with employment discrimination allegations; a plaintiff cannot escape this preemption without pleading facts wholly independent of the discrimination or retaliation claims.
- Texas imposes a one-year statute of limitations on defamation claims, and courts will dismiss such claims without leave to amend where the filing delay is unexplained and the limitations bar is clear on the face of the complaint.
- A motion for leave to amend filed months after the original complaint and after a pending dismissal motion, without new factual allegations or explanation for the delay, will not be granted — and arguments raised for the first time on appeal are forfeited.
Why It Matters
Grant v. Amazon illustrates the preclusive force of prior judgments when an employment plaintiff brings successive suits against the same employer. Attorneys advising clients who have already litigated — or who are currently litigating — employment claims must account for res judicata across both federal and state forums, since prior state-court judgments can foreclose parallel or follow-on federal claims under the full faith and credit statute. The decision also underscores the breadth of Chapter 21 preemption in Texas: plaintiffs cannot use IIED or defamation as a back door to recover for workplace conduct that is already covered by the Texas Labor Code’s antidiscrimination framework.
For pro se litigants specifically, the case is a reminder that liberal pleading standards do not relax the substantive requirements of res judicata, preemption, or statutes of limitations, and that serial re-filing of claims already adjudicated carries the risk of sanctions findings and denial of in forma pauperis status — both of which occurred here across Grant’s prior appeals.