Overruling its prior decision, the Texas Supreme Court held that newly enacted legislation did not waive governmental immunity for suits based on a political subdivision's alleged retaliation against an employee filing a workers compensation claim. See Travis Century Appraisal Dist. v. Norman, 2011 Tex. LEXIS 324 (Tex. April 29, 2011).
Ms. Norman started work for the Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) as a probationary employee in January 2006. She was terminated six months later, shortly after filing a workers compensation claim. Ms. Norman claimed she was terminated for seeking workers compensation benefits and sued TCAD for retaliatory discharge under the Texas Anti-Retaliation Law. The trial court and court of appeals agreed with Ms. Norman that governmental immunity had been waived for the retaliatory discharge claim.
In City of LaPorte v. Barfield, 898 S.W. 2d 288 (Tex. 1995), the Texas Supreme Court analyzed two provisions of the Texas Labor Code, the Anti-Retaliation Law and the Political Subdivisions Law. The court determined that the Political Subdivisions Law effectively waive governmental immunity for retaliation claims under the Anti-Retaliation Law. The Anti-Retaliation Law created a cause of action against a "person" who discharged or discriminated against an employee for filing a workers compensation claim in good faith. The statute did not define the word "person." Although there was no clear and unambiguous waive of immunity in the Anti-Retaliation Law itself, Barfield held that the Political Subdivisions Law waived governmental immunity for retaliation claims.
Subsequent to Barfield, however, a 2005 amendment to the Political Subdivisions Law broadly provided, "nothing in this chapter waives sovereign immunity or creates a new cause of action." This current version of the Political Subdivisions Law was too internally inconsistent to be a clear and unambiguous waiver of governmental immunity. Therefore, the Political Subdivisions Law no longer waived immunity for retaliatory discharge claims.
Because a retaliatory discharge claim could not be brought against the government without its consent and the Political Subdivisions Law no longer provided such consent by waiving the government's immunity, Ms. Norman's claim had to be dismissed.
