Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Assessment Intervention Management, LLC (“AIM”), an educational-services provider, contracted with Shondalyn McIntyre to work as a special education coordinator and classified her as an independent contractor. McIntyre alleged that two AIM employees discriminated and retaliated against her. After AIM denied her request to be reclassified as an employee, disputes arose over her assignments, meetings, hours, and billing, and AIM terminated the contract, which permitted termination with or without cause.
McIntyre filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC and received a right-to-sue letter stating that the agency had closed the charge because she was not in an employment relationship with AIM. She then sued AIM for misclassification, race discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, and tortious interference with a contract. The trial court granted AIM’s plea to the jurisdiction on the employment-related claims and its Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 91a motion to dismiss the tortious-interference claim.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed the jurisdictional dismissal because the trial-court record contained no evidence that McIntyre filed a complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission as required to exhaust administrative remedies under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act. Although McIntyre attached to her appellate brief an EEOC letter indicating that her charge had been dual-filed with the TWC, that letter was not part of the appellate record and therefore could not be considered. AIM, meanwhile, submitted certified TWC records stating that no responsive documents concerning McIntyre existed.
The court also affirmed dismissal of the tortious-interference claim under Rule 91a. AIM could not tortiously interfere with its own contract, and McIntyre alleged that the employees involved were AIM’s agents without alleging that they acted to advance their own interests rather than AIM’s. The pleaded conduct therefore did not support a claim that a stranger to the contract had interfered with it.
Key Takeaways
- A plaintiff pursuing claims under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act must establish exhaustion of administrative remedies through a complaint filed with the TWC.
- Material attached only to an appellate brief generally cannot establish a fact when it was not properly presented to the trial court and included in the appellate record.
- A contracting party cannot tortiously interfere with its own contract, and its agents ordinarily are not outsiders to the contract unless they act completely contrary to the principal’s interests.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that evidence of dual filing with the EEOC and TWC must be placed in the trial-court record; presenting that evidence for the first time as an appellate attachment will not cure the omission. It also illustrates Rule 91a’s application when the pleaded facts cannot satisfy the stranger-to-the-contract requirement for tortious interference.