Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Cary Barnett, a campus peace officer employed by Sulphur Springs Independent School District, alleged that he reported a principal’s practice of leaving school doors propped open while students were present. After district officials allegedly failed to correct the practice and the principal allegedly harassed him, Barnett reported the matter to an auditor at the Region VIII Education Service Center and to the Texas Education Agency. The district later terminated his employment, and his grievance was denied at each level of district review.
Barnett sued the district and several administrators, initially alleging violations of the Texas Whistleblower Act, statutory due-process protections, and free-speech rights. The defendants filed a plea to the jurisdiction based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Barnett then amended his petition to add claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including a civil-rights conspiracy claim. The trial court denied the defendants’ existing jurisdictional plea as moot, and the defendants brought an interlocutory appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that the district had not established immunity from Barnett’s Texas Whistleblower Act claim. Although the defendants generally denied Barnett’s allegations, they supplied no affidavits or other evidence challenging the jurisdictional facts underlying his alleged good-faith reports. Under the summary-judgment-like standard applicable to such a jurisdictional challenge, the district therefore did not carry its initial burden.
The court also concluded that the Texas Tort Claims Act’s election-of-remedies provision did not prevent Barnett from adding Section 1983 and other claims outside that Act against the individual defendants before the trial court ruled on the jurisdictional plea. Because the amended petition introduced claims and jurisdictional questions not addressed by the original plea, however, Barnett was entitled to an opportunity in the trial court to amend his pleadings or develop the record. The court therefore remanded the immunity and civil-conspiracy issues for further proceedings.
On administrative exhaustion, the court ruled that Barnett was not required to exhaust an Education Code remedy merely because his allegations involved a school-safety regulation. His asserted injuries arose from alleged violations of the Whistleblower Act and his civil rights, not from the school laws themselves. The defendants’ newly asserted exhaustion theories under other statutes had not been examined below, so the court remanded those theories for initial consideration. It affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Key Takeaways
- A governmental defendant challenging the jurisdictional facts supporting a Whistleblower Act claim must satisfy its initial evidentiary burden; a general denial without supporting evidence was insufficient here.
- Education Code exhaustion applies when a claimant is aggrieved by school laws or a district’s violation of them, not merely because an alleged constitutional or whistleblower violation arises in a school setting.
- When amended pleadings and new appellate arguments materially change the jurisdictional issues, remand may be necessary so the plaintiff can address those issues and develop the record in the trial court.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that courts must evaluate jurisdiction against the live pleadings and that an amended petition does not automatically make an earlier plea to the jurisdiction irrelevant. It also limits school districts’ ability to invoke the Education Commissioner’s administrative process when an employee’s alleged injury stems from whistleblower retaliation or constitutional violations rather than from the school laws themselves.