IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-20223

Summary Calendar

UYLESS L. JONES, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

CITY OF HOUSTON; CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION FOR MUNICIPAL 

EMPLOYEES OF THE CITY OF HOUSTON; TODD JOHNSON; TOM 

SORELY, 

 Defendants - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:15-CV-3051

Before KING, SOUTHWICK, and ENGELHARDT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Plaintiff Uyless Jones, a municipal employee for the City of Houston (the 

“City”), appeals the district court’s orders dismissing his numerous claims 

against the City, his supervisors, and the Civil Service Commission for 

Municipal Employees of the City of Houston. Jones, who is black, alleges that 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

November 20, 2018

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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2

his supervisors racially discriminated against him and then retaliated against 

him for internally complaining about the discrimination. 

We agree with most of the district court’s order. But we conclude the 

district court erred in holding that Jones failed to timely exhaust part of his 

state-law race-discrimination claim. Accordingly, we REVERSE in part and 

AFFIRM in part.

I.

We draw the following facts from Jones’s complaint and the attachments 

incorporated therein. 

During all relevant times, the City employed Jones as a technical 

hardware analyst in the radio division of its information-technology 

department. Defendant Todd Johnson directly supervised Jones, while 

defendant Thomas Sorely supervised Johnson. Jones’s claims involve several 

discrete allegations against Johnson and Sorely.

First, Jones alleges that between November 2013 and May 2014, 

Johnson—with Sorely’s approval—required Jones to cut the grass surrounding 

various radio towers. He further asserts that Johnson allowed the white 

members of his staff to skirt their assigned landscaping duties. In either March 

or April of 2014, Jones filed an internal complaint with the City alleging that 

Johnson was racially discriminating against him by singling him out to 

perform manual labor and subjecting him to harassment and other disparate

treatment. The City responded to Jones’s complaint in February 2015. It 

sustained Jones’s allegation that Johnson subjected him to unequal 

landscaping duties from November 2013 through May 2014. But it found 

insufficient evidence to support Johnson’s other various allegations.

Separately, while Jones’s internal complaint was pending, he and a 

group of his colleagues reported to a number of City higher-ups, including the 

mayor, that they did not have the equipment needed to properly perform their 

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jobs. Specifically, Jones says that he and his colleagues were tasked with 

testing certain communications systems for the fire department in response to 

a fatal fire. But he says the City did not provide them with the proper 

equipment to run these tests, risking inaccurate results. Jones alleges that 

Johnson—again with Sorely’s approval—officially reprimanded Jones and his 

whistleblowing colleagues. Jones says that he and the other whistleblowers 

were eventually cleared of wrongdoing. But he alleges that his white colleagues 

were all exonerated before he was.

Jones additionally alleges that Sorely continued to retaliate against him 

after he initiated the present litigation. Jones says that in January 2016, 

Sorely ordered him to submit to a drug test and placed him on paid leave 

pending the results.1 Jones asserts that City policy only permits drug tests to 

be administered for reasonable suspicion of drug use. But he says Sorely never 

provided any basis for ordering the test. Then, Jones alleges that when his test 

came back negative and he returned from leave, Johnson demoted him “to a 

role of ‘handy-man.’”

Jones filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) on November 24, 2014. In the charge, he 

alleged the City racially discriminated against him, citing his grass-cutting 

duties and reprimand for whistleblowing. In its response, the City 

acknowledged that Johnson discriminated against Jones by assigning him to 

cut the grass around the radio towers but assured that it took remedial action 

to resolve the situation.

 

1 In Paragraph 43 of his operative complaint, Jones indicates that this incident took 

place in January 2015. This appears to be a scrivener’s error. Also in Paragraph 43, he 

suggests that the drug test took place during the pendency of the current litigation, which 

did not commence until September 2016. Further, in Paragraph 54 he refers to the drug test 

as having taken place in January 2016. In any event, the date of the drug test is not relevant 

to our present analysis. 

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Jones’s attorney sent the EEOC a letter of representation on May 25, 

2015. Three days later, an EEOC investigator notified Jones’s attorney that a 

right-to-sue letter was forthcoming. Then on June 1, the EEOC sent Jones the 

right-to-sue letter but did not send a copy to his attorney. Jones then filed the 

present lawsuit in state court on September 18, 2015, which the defendants 

subsequently removed to the federal district court. 

Jones asserted ten general causes of action in his operative complaint: 

(1) a Title VII claim for retaliation; (2) a 42 U.S.C. § 1981 claim for hostile work 

environment; (3) a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim for various constitutional violations 

relating to the January 2016 drug test; (4) a § 1983 claim for First Amendment 

retaliation; (5) a Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (“TCHRA”) claim for 

racial discrimination and retaliation; (6) a 42 U.S.C. § 1985 claim for 

conspiracy to violate his civil rights; (7) a Texas Whistleblower Act claim for 

retaliation; (8) a common-law slander claim; (9) a common-law 

“[m]isrpresentation/[f]raud/[p]romissory estoppel” claim; and (10) a commonlaw intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim. 

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The district court granted the motion in 

respect to all of Jones’s claims except for his TCHRA retaliation claim against 

the City. It subsequently granted the City’s motion for summary judgment on 

the remnants of Jones’s TCHRA claim and entered final judgment. Jones 

appeals.

II.

We review orders dismissing complaints under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo and 

apply the same standard as the district court. See Villarreal v. Wells Fargo 

Bank, N.A., 814 F.3d 763, 766 (5th Cir. 2016). That is, we accept all wellpleaded facts as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the 

plaintiff. See id. “We affirm the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss 

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‘when the plaintiff has not alleged enough facts to state a claim to relief that 

is plausible on its face or has failed to raise [the plaintiff’s] right to relief above 

the speculative level, on the assumption that all the allegations in the 

complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact).’” Raj v. La. State Univ., 714 F.3d 

322, 330 (5th Cir. 2013) (quoting Bass v. Stryker Corp., 669 F.3d 501, 506 (5th 

Cir. 2012)). A claim is facially plausible “when the plaintiff pleads factual 

content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the 

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 

678 (2009). To conduct this analysis, we look to “the complaint, its proper 

attachments, ‘documents incorporated into the complaint by reference, and 

matters of which a court may take judicial notice.’” Randall D. Wolcott, M.D., 

P.A. v. Sebelius, 635 F.3d 757, 763 (5th Cir. 2011) (quoting Dorsey v. Portfolio 

Equities, Inc., 540 F.3d 333, 338 (5th Cir. 2008)). 

A.

Jones first argues that the district court erred in dismissing his claim 

under the TCHRA—Texas’s Title VII analog—as untimely. Prior to suing 

under the TCHRA, “Texas law requires that a complaint of unlawful 

employment practices be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission or the Texas Commission on Human Rights within 180 days after 

the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” Specialty Retailers, Inc. 

v. DeMoranville, 933 S.W.2d 490, 492 (Tex. 1996); see also Tex. Labor Code 

Ann. § 21.202(a). This limitations period begins to run “when the employee is 

informed of the allegedly discriminatory employment decision.” Specialty 

Retailers, 933 S.W.2d at 493.

The district court concluded that Jones did not timely complain to the 

EEOC about the discriminatory landscaping duties. It explained:

Plaintiff filed his Charge with the EEOC on November 24, 2014, 

alleging discrimination based on the unequal grass-cutting 

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assignment and retaliation for reporting the discrimination. 

Although Plaintiff does not specify when he was made to cut grass, 

he does allege that he filed his first formal complaint about it in 

“March and/or April of 2014.” Thus, assuming that the incident did 

not occur until the last day of April, more than 180 days passed 

between the time Plaintiff was assigned to cut the grass and the 

time when Plaintiff filed his November 24, 2014 Charge. 

Accordingly, Plaintiff’s TCHRA claim based on the grass-cutting 

assignment is untimely and subject to dismissal.

The district court overlooked a few pertinent aspects of Jones’s 

pleadings. First, Jones’s EEOC charge, which he attached to and explicitly 

incorporated into his complaint, alleges the discrimination took place between 

August 27, 2012, and November 24, 2014, the date he filed the charge. 

Although the charge does not specify whether he was subject to the 

discriminatory grass-cutting assignment specifically through November 24, 

2014, it is reasonable to infer that he was. Drawing this inference, we conclude 

that the most recent discriminatory act occurred well within the limitations 

period. See Villarreal, 814 F.3d at 766.

But even assuming Jones’s allegations in the EEOC charge are not 

specific enough to show he was subject to the grass-cutting assignment within 

the limitations period, we alternatively infer the discrimination ended on May 

31, 2014, which still falls within the limitations period. Jones pleaded on the 

face of his complaint that the City inspector general found he was subject to 

the discriminatory grass-cutting assignment “between November 2013 and 

May 2014.” Jones further attached the inspector general’s letter, which 

corroborates this allegation, and the City’s EEOC response, which repeats the 

inspector general’s conclusion. Indeed, in the background section of its order, 

the district court even quoted the inspector general’s conclusion that Jones was 

subject to “the unequal grass-cutting assignment for the period of November 

2013 through May 2014.” 

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Accordingly, Jones sufficiently alleges that—at the earliest—his grasscutting duties ended May 31, 2014. And taking this allegation as true, the 

limitations period expired on November 27, 2014—three days after Jones filed 

his November 24 EEOC charge. Therefore, we reverse the portion of the district 

court’s order dismissing Jones’s grass-cutting TCHRA claim as untimely. 

B.

Jones next argues that the district court erred in dismissing his §§ 1981 

and 1983 claims. We analyze these claims together because they all suffer the 

same flaw: to the extent Jones asserts his claims against the municipal and 

official-capacity defendants, he fails to allege sufficient facts to show liability 

under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978).2 And to 

the extent he asserts his claims against Johnson and Sorely in their individual 

capacities, he fails to meet his burden to overcome the defendants’ qualified 

immunity.3

1.

In Monell, the Supreme Court held that § 1983 does not allow municipal 

governments to be held liable for their employees’ actions under a respondeat 

superior theory. See 436 U.S. at 694. Rather, the Court explained that a § 1983 

claim is only actionable against a municipal government “when execution of 

[the] government’s policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by 

those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts 

the injury.” Id.; see also Peterson v. City of Fort Worth, 588 F.3d 838, 847 (5th 

Cir. 2009) (“To establish municipal liability under § 1983, a plaintiff must show 

 

2 We treat suits against municipal officials in their official capacities as suits against 

the municipality itself. See Brown v. Strain, 663 F.3d 245, 251 (5th Cir. 2011).

3 It is not entirely clear from Jones’s operative complaint whether he intended to sue 

Johnson and Sorely in their official capacities, individual capacities, or both. The district 

court appeared to assume he intended to sue them in both their official and individual 

capacities. We do the same.

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that (1) an official policy (2) promulgated by the municipal policymaker (3) was 

the moving force behind the violation of a constitutional right.”). The Court 

subsequently extended Monell’s requirements to § 1981 claims against 

municipal employers. See Jett v. Dall. Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701, 735-36 

(1989).

The district court dismissed Jones’s §§ 1981 and 1983 claims against the 

municipal and official-capacity defendants because it concluded that Jones 

failed to plead that any municipal policy or custom was the “moving force 

behind” any of the alleged violations. Peterson, 588 F.3d at 847. We agree. In 

his pleadings below and in his brief on appeal, Jones fails to point to a single 

policy or custom responsible for his alleged harms. Indeed, at multiple points 

in his complaint, he appears to allege that Johnson and Sorely violated

municipal policy with their various wrongdoings.4 We therefore conclude 

Jones’s §§ 1981 and 1983 claims against the municipal and official-capacity 

defendants fail to state a claim.5

 

4 For example, in Paragraph 22 of his operative complaint, Jones states that the City 

“strictly prohibits discrimination in employment and employment opportunities on the basis 

of any protected category.”

5 Jones argues the district court erred in dismissing his § 1981 claims against the 

municipal and official-capacity defendants because it erroneously concluded that § 1981 does 

not create an independent cause of action for claims against a municipal employer. Jones 

appears to misapprehend the district court’s analysis. True, the district court did hold that 

Jones could not state an independent § 1981 claim against the municipal and official-capacity

defendants—correctly so under the law of this circuit. See Oden v. Oktibbeha Cty., 246 F.3d 

458, 464 (5th Cir. 2001). But it also “liberally construe[d] [Jones]’s § 1981 claim against the 

[municipal and official-capacity defendants] as having also been pled under [Jones]’s § 1983 

claims.” Thus, even if we could disregard our precedent and consider Jones’s § 1981 claims 

as stating independent causes of action instead of considering them as part of his § 1983 

claims, these claims would still fail for want of municipal policy or custom.

Although it is not clear from his brief, it is possible that Jones means to argue that if 

he could state an independent § 1981 claim, then he would not need to meet Monell’s

requirements. Essentially, Jones says that Congress abrogated Jett when it amended § 1981 

in 1991. But even to the extent that these amendments overrode Jett’s holding that § 1981 

claims against municipal employers must be brought through § 1983—the very argument we 

rejected in Oden, see 246 F.3d at 464—it does not necessarily follow that the amendments 

also overrode Jett’s holding that Monell applies to § 1981 suits. The Ninth Circuit case that 

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2.

Government officials enjoy qualified immunity from personal liability 

for harms they commit in performing the discretionary functions of their jobs. 

See Haverda v. Hays Cty., 723 F.3d 586, 598 (5th Cir. 2013). Thus, they may 

only be held liable if clearly established law would put a reasonable official on 

notice that the particular conduct at issue was unlawful. See Mote v. Walthall, 

---F.3d---, 2018 WL 4215089, at *4 (5th Cir. Aug. 31, 2018); see also Hogan v. 

Cunningham, 722 F.3d 725, 735 (5th Cir. 2013) (“To say that the law was 

clearly established, ‘we must be able to point to controlling authority—or a 

“robust consensus of persuasive authority”—that defines the contours of the 

right in question with a high degree of particularity.’” (quoting Morgan v. 

Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 371-72 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc))). The Supreme Court 

has repeatedly warned us not to conduct the clearly-established-law analysis 

at too high a level of generality. See, e.g., Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 

1152 (2018) (“This Court has ‘repeatedly told courts . . . not to define clearly 

established law at a high level of generality.’” (quoting City & Cty. of S.F. v. 

Sheehan, 135 S. Ct. 1765, 1775-76 (2015))); White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 552 

(2017) (“Today, it is again necessary to reiterate the longstanding principle 

that ‘clearly established law’ should not be defined ‘at a high level of 

generality.’” (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011))). When a 

public official pleads qualified immunity, the plaintiff bears the burden of 

citing authority that clearly establishes the unlawfulness of the alleged 

violation. See Wyatt v. Fletcher, 718 F.3d 496, 510 n.19 (5th Cir. 2013).

The district court dismissed Jones’s §§ 1981 and 1983 claims against 

Johnson and Sorely in their individual capacities because it determined that 

 

Jones relies on says as much. See Fed’n of African Am. Contractors v. City of Oakland, 96 

F.3d 1204, 1215 (9th Cir. 1996) (concluding “that the amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 

preserves the ‘policy or custom’ requirement in suits against state actors”).

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he did not carry his burden to overcome their assertions of qualified immunity. 

On appeal, Jones recounts facts from his pleadings that he insists “negat[e] 

Johnson and Sorely’s qualified immunity defense.” But he fails to cite any 

authority clearly establishing that Johnson and Sorely acted unlawfully. At 

most, the scattered authority Jones does cite clearly establishes that §§ 1981 

and 1983 prohibit racial discrimination and retaliation in employment and 

that § 1981 claims are cognizable against government officials in their 

individual capacities.6 But it is not enough that the law is clearly established 

at such high levels of generality. See, e.g., White, 137 S. Ct at 552. And because 

Jones makes no attempt to show why Johnson and Sorely should have known 

their particular conduct was unlawful, we conclude he fails to carry his burden 

to overcome the defendants’ qualified immunity. Cf. Linicomn v. Hill, ---F.3d---, 

2018 WL 4214979, at *5 (5th Cir. Sept. 5, 2018) (affirming grant of qualified 

immunity because plaintiff “d[id] not cite to any controlling authority 

establishing that the [defendants’ alleged conduct] would have violated a 

clearly established right under the circumstances”).

In sum, Jones’s §§ 1981 and 1983 claims all fail because he does not carry 

his burdens to (1) allege municipal liability and (2) overcome qualified 

immunity. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of these claims.

C.

Jones lastly argues that the district court erred in dismissing his Title 

VII claim as untimely. Title VII requires plaintiffs to exhaust their 

administrative remedies by filing an EEOC charge prior to bringing suit. See 

 

6 Like the district court, we do not actually decide whether § 1981 claims are 

cognizable against government officials in their individual capacities. See Foley v. Univ. of 

Hous. Sys., 355 F.3d 333, 338 (5th Cir. 2003) (recognizing “tension” in our § 1981 caselaw 

“with respect to the liability of individual defendants who are not parties to the employment 

contract”). Assuming they are, Jones fails to show that Johnson and Sorely should have 

known their conduct violated § 1981.

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42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1); Taylor v. Books A Million, Inc., 296 F.3d 376, 378-79 

(5th Cir. 2002). If the EEOC fails to resolve the dispute and chooses not to 

bring suit itself, then it must notify the plaintiff of its decision. See § 2000e5(f)(1); Taylor, 296 F.3d at 379. Upon receiving such notice from the EEOC—

often referred to as a “right-to-sue letter”7—the plaintiff then has 90 days to 

file a lawsuit. § 2000e-5(f)(1); Taylor, 296 F.3d at 379. Failure to meet this 

limitations period generally warrants dismissal. See Taylor, 296 F.3d at 379.

Jones concedes that he filed the present lawsuit more than 90 days after 

receiving his right-to-sue letter. But he nevertheless argues that the district 

court should have equitably tolled the limitations period because the EEOC 

failed to send the right-to-sue letter to his attorney. 

Under certain circumstances, courts may equitably toll Title VII’s 90-day 

limitations period. See Irwin v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 95-96 

(1990). The district court has discretion to grant or deny equitable tolling, so 

we review its decision for abuse of discretion. See Granger v. Aaron’s Inc., 636 

F.3d 708, 712 (5th Cir. 2011). We have allowed tolling in Title VII actions when 

(1) the plaintiff timely filed suit in the wrong forum; (2) the defendant 

intentionally concealed the facts giving rise to the lawsuit; (3) the EEOC 

misleads the plaintiff about his rights; and (4) “a plaintiff has actively pursued 

judicial remedies but filed a defective pleading.” Id. (quoting Perez v. United 

States, 167 F.3d 913, 917 (5th Cir. 1999)). We also take into account (1) whether 

the plaintiff acted diligently; (2) whether the delay prejudiced the defendant; 

and (3) the balance of equities. See id. at 712-13.

We conclude that the district court acted within its discretion in denying 

Jones’s equitable tolling request. This case does not neatly fit in any of the 

categories that we have previously recognized as warranting tolling. Although 

 

7 E.g., Welsh v. Fort Bend Indep. Sch. Dist., 860 F.3d 762, 763 (5th Cir. 2017).

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Jones argues that an EEOC investigator misled his attorney by failing to send 

the attorney Jones’s right-to-sue letter in violation of its own policies, the 

district court appropriately concluded this was not the kind of deceit that 

warrants tolling. Typically, tolling is only appropriate in such cases “when an 

employee seeks information from the EEOC, and the organization gives the 

individual incorrect information that leads the individual to file an untimely 

charge.” Manning v. Chevron Chem. Co., LLC, 332 F.3d 874, 881 (5th Cir. 

2003). Jones does not allege that the EEOC investigator provided any incorrect 

information to his attorney that led to the untimely filing.8

Further, neither Jones nor his attorney acted with particular diligence. 

Jones does not dispute that he personally received the right-to-sue letter, 

which stated in capitalized, bold, and underlined font that Jones had 90 days 

from the receipt of that letter to file a lawsuit. And just days before sending 

Jones the right-to-sue letter, an EEOC investigator suggested to Jones’s 

attorney that the EEOC would soon send the letter. Had Jones’s attorney 

exercised true diligence, she would have followed-up with either Jones or the 

EEOC at some point in the following ninety days to ascertain whether the 

EEOC had in fact sent the letter. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s 

dismissal of Jones’s Title VII claim.

D.

To the extent that Jones intends to appeal the district court’s dismissal 

of his § 1985 claim, his Texas Whistleblower Act claims, his three common-law 

 

8 On appeal, Jones insists that the EEOC investigator told Jones’s attorney she would 

send the attorney a copy of the right to sue letter. But Jones does not make any such 

allegation in his complaint. Nor does the correspondence Jones attached to his complaint 

support this assertion. Rather, in the only attached communication from any EEOC official 

to Jones’s attorney prior to the commencement of this lawsuit, the EEOC investigator told 

Jones’s attorney that a recommendation had been made for “a [d]ismissal and [n]otice of 

[r]ight to [s]ue be issued.” The investigator did not represent that such a notice would be sent 

to Jones’s attorney.

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claims, or the parts of his TCHRA claim that survived to summary judgment, 

we do not consider these issues. Although Jones broadly insists the district 

court erred in dismissing “virtually all of his claims,” he does not advance any 

specific argument about why the district court erred in dismissing these 

particular claims. It is not clear whether he intends to relinquish these claims, 

but we conclude he has relinquished them regardless. See McClendon v. United 

States, 892 F.3d 775, 784 (5th Cir. 2018) (“Because [the appellant] fails to 

identify any error in the district court’s legal analysis on this issue, it ‘is the 

same as if he had not appealed that [part of the] judgment’” (second alteration 

in original) (quoting Brinkmann v. Dall. Cty. Deputy Abner, 813 F.2d 744, 748 

(5th Cir. 1987))). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of these 

claims.

III.

As a final matter, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in denying Jones’s motion to amend. See Marucci Sports, L.L.C. v. 

NCAA, 751 F.3d 368, 378 (5th Cir. 2014) (reviewing order denying motion to 

amend for abuse of discretion). The district court explained that (1) it granted 

Jones’s two prior motions to amend; (2) it warned Jones that it would not 

provide him with further opportunities to amend; and (3) Jones did not attach 

a proposed amended complaint or explain the changes he would make. These 

considerations are valid. See id. (explaining that in considering a motion to 

amend, the district court “may consider a variety of factors including . . . 

‘repeated failures to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed’” 

(quoting Mayeaux v. La. Health Serv. & Indem. Co., 376 F.3d 420, 426 (5th Cir.

2004))); U.S. ex rel. Willard v. Humana Health Plan of Tex. Inc., 336 F.3d 375, 

387 (5th Cir. 2003) (“[A] bare request in an opposition to a motion to dismiss—

without any indication of the particular grounds on which the amendment is 

sought—does not constitute a motion within the contemplation of Rule 15(a).” 

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(alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting Confederate Mem’l Ass’n, Inc. 

v. Hines, 995 F.2d 295, 299 (D.C. Cir. 1993))).

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the portion of the district 

court’s judgment to the extent it dismissed Jones’s TCHRA claims relating to 

his landscaping duties, but we otherwise AFFIRM. Each party shall bear its 

own costs.

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