Supreme Court of Texas 

══════════

No. 22-0843 

══════════

Texas Tech University System and 

Texas Tech University System Board of Regents, 

Petitioners, 

v. 

Pureza “Didit” Martinez, 

Respondent

═══════════════════════════════════════

On Petition for Review from the 

Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas 

═══════════════════════════════════════

Argued November 30, 2023 

JUSTICE HUDDLE delivered the opinion of the Court, in which 

Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, Justice 

Blacklock, and Justice Bland joined. 

JUSTICE YOUNG filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Boyd 

and Justice Busby joined. 

After over eleven years of service, Pureza “Didit” Martinez was 

fired by the president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences 

Center. Martinez, who was seventy-two years old at the time, sued the 

Health Sciences Center, alleging age discrimination. The question in 
2 

this case is whether Martinez’s pleadings allege facts that could support 

an age-discrimination claim against two other defendants: the Texas 

Tech University System and the TTU System’s Board of Regents. They 

jointly filed a plea to the jurisdiction, arguing that they retained 

sovereign immunity because Martinez failed to plead allegations that 

could make them liable to her for age discrimination under the Labor 

Code. In essence, they denied being Martinez’s employer. The trial 

court denied the plea, and the court of appeals affirmed. 

We conclude that Martinez’s petition does not allege facts 

demonstrating that the TTU System or the Board employed Martinez 

directly or that either one controlled access to and interfered with her 

employment. Martinez’s petition thus fails to allege facts that 

affirmatively demonstrate that she has a valid age-discrimination claim 

against the TTU System or the Board, as opposed to the Health Sciences 

Center. For this reason, Martinez failed to allege a waiver of sovereign 

immunity, and the plea to the jurisdiction of the TTU System and the 

Board should have been granted. Nevertheless, because the petition 

does not foreclose a valid claim against those defendants, we remand to 

the trial court to give Martinez an opportunity to replead. 

I. Background 

Martinez started working as senior assistant to the president at 

the Health Sciences Center in January 2008. She was promoted the 

next year to be the president’s chief of staff. She retained that position 

when the Health Sciences Center hired a new president, Dr. Tedd 

Mitchell, in 2010. 
3 

Martinez was let go nine years later, at age seventy-two. About 

one month earlier, Dr. Mitchell emailed Martinez and fifteen other 

senior employees at the Health Sciences Center regarding the need to 

address succession planning as part of the university’s overall strategic 

planning process. The email opens by mentioning Dr. Mitchell’s recent 

discussion regarding succession planning with the Board. It goes on to 

describe the results of an internal analysis of employees in leadership 

positions, and it concludes with a request that each recipient of the email 

develop for Dr. Mitchell’s review a succession plan for his or her 

individual role. We reproduce the email in its entirety because it is the 

centerpiece of Martinez’s claims: 

Good morning everyone – Given the current whirlwind 

surrounding the timeline of the Legislative Session, I’ve 

not spent a lot of time on strategic planning for either [the 

Health Sciences Center] or the [TTU] System. However, 

with the session coming to a close by the end of this month, 

it will be time to shift gears and plan for the future. 

One of the areas that I have discussed with members of the 

[Board] is related to succession planning at both the 

[TTU System] as well as [the Health Sciences Center]. It 

is something they are quite interested in and is timely 

because of the current economy. Low unemployment 

means that recruiting becomes harder, which means we 

must all be quite intentional in our planning. 

I asked Steve Sosland to do an analysis of our current 

leadership, and the results illustrate why this is necessary. 

For members of our [President’s Executive Council], the 

average age is 60, 62% are eligible for retirement, and of 

those not yet eligible for retirement, 50% will be in the next 

2-5 years. This is not meant to insult anyone’s age or 

length of employment, but rather to point out that our most 

important governing group is vulnerable to a precipitous 

change at any given time. 
4 

Accordingly, I am going to ask everyone to develop a 

written document for their own succession planning, which 

I would like to review as part of [the Health Sciences 

Center]’s strategic planning process. 

Thanks to everyone for helping to square this away. 

Tedd 

About one month after Martinez received this email, the Health 

Sciences Center’s budget office informed her that Dr. Mitchell had 

approved salary increases for her and several other members of the 

President’s Executive Council (the same group that received the email). 

The next morning, however, Martinez alleges she was approached by 

Dr. Mitchell and told without explanation that she could no longer serve 

as his chief of staff. Several hours later, Dr. Mitchell emailed Martinez 

and stated that he had lost confidence in her ability to maintain 

confidentiality, making their “ongoing work together impossible.” He 

cited an incident the night before in which a senior vice president told 

Dr. Mitchell that his faculty and staff had learned “from the president’s 

office” that he was going to be fired. Martinez “vehemently den[ied]” the 

accusation that she had leaked this information. 

Following her termination, Martinez filed a complaint with the 

Texas Workforce Commission, and she later sued the Health Sciences 

Center, Texas Tech University, the TTU System, and the TTU System’s 

Board of Regents under Section 21.051 of the Labor Code. Her petition 

alleges that she was unlawfully terminated due to her age1 and seeks 

damages, including front and back pay, lost wages and employee 

1 We express no opinion on the ultimate merits of Martinez’s 

age-discrimination claim. 
5 

benefits, loss of earning capacity, damage to her reputation, punitive 

damages, and attorney’s fees. 

The University, the TTU System, and the Board (but not the 

Health Sciences Center) filed a plea to the jurisdiction.2 They argued 

that immunity had not been waived as to them because Martinez did 

not exhaust her administrative remedies as to any defendant other than 

the Health Sciences Center. Martinez responded and argued that she 

properly exhausted her administrative remedies because her 

administrative charge was sufficiently broad to encompass all four 

defendants. 

The day before the hearing on the plea to the jurisdiction, the 

defendants alleged, as an affirmative defense, that the University, the 

TTU System, and the Board (but not the Health Sciences Center) 

retained immunity because “they were not [Martinez]’s employer.” 

Then, on the morning of the hearing, the defendants filed a reply brief 

arguing that, in addition to Martinez’s failure to exhaust her 

administrative remedies, her claims against the University, the 

TTU System, and the Board should be dismissed because “they are not 

properly brought against [Martinez]’s employer under Texas Labor Code 

§ 21.051.” 

At the hearing, the defendants conceded that jurisdiction was 

proper for Martinez’s “actual employer,” the Health Sciences Center. 

But they asserted that Martinez failed to allege that any of the other 

2 The defendants originally did not answer, and Martinez obtained a 

partial default judgment against all defendants on liability. The trial court 

later set aside the default judgment, and that order has not been challenged in 

this appeal. 
6 

defendants was her employer, so immunity was not waived as to those 

defendants. In response, Martinez’s counsel agreed that “[h]er employer 

was the Texas Tech University Health Science[s] Center.” But citing 

this Court’s opinion in NME Hospitals, Inc. v. Rennels, 994 S.W.2d 142 

(Tex. 1999), Martinez argued that she could sue entities other than her 

employer for unlawful employment practices if those entities “controlled 

access” to her employment opportunities and “denied or interfered with 

that access based on unlawful criteria,” such as age discrimination. Id.

at 147. Relying primarily on Dr. Mitchell’s succession-planning email, 

Martinez argued that she was terminated because the Board, as the 

governing body of the TTU System, decided to decrease the age of the 

President’s Executive Council and asked Dr. Mitchell “to rectify the 

situation.” 

The trial court denied the plea to the jurisdiction, and the 

University, the TTU System, and the Board appealed. They argued that 

Martinez failed to plead sufficient allegations to demonstrate that these 

defendants either were her employer or satisfied the Rennels test.3 The 

court concluded that Martinez’s petition alleged sufficient facts to 

establish jurisdiction over the TTU System and the Board, but not the 

University. 683 S.W.3d 111, 116 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2022). It 

therefore reversed the order as to the University, albeit with an 

3 The defendants also argued that Martinez failed to exhaust her 

administrative remedies. 683 S.W.3d 111, 116–17 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2022). 

The court of appeals rejected this argument, id. at 117–18, and the defendants 

have not raised it in this Court. 
7 

opportunity for Martinez to replead.4 Id. at 118. The court affirmed the 

remainder of the trial court’s order. Id. The TTU System and the Board 

petitioned this Court for review, which we granted. 

II. Applicable Law 

Although Chapter 21 of the Labor Code clearly and 

unambiguously waives immunity for certain unlawful employment 

practices, “it is a limited waiver of immunity.” Prairie View A&M Univ. 

v. Chatha, 381 S.W.3d 500, 513 (Tex. 2012). Chapter 21 “waives 

immunity from suit only for statutory violations, which means the trial 

court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the dispute absent some 

evidence the [defendant] violated” Chapter 21. Alamo Heights Indep. 

Sch. Dist. v. Clark, 544 S.W.3d 755, 763 (Tex. 2018). 

When, as in this case, a jurisdictional plea challenges the 

plaintiff’s pleadings, the Court determines whether the plaintiff has 

alleged facts that affirmatively demonstrate a court’s jurisdiction to 

hear the cause. Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 

217, 226 (Tex. 2004). “[O]ur notice-pleading rules . . . require pleadings 

to not only give notice of the claim and the relief sought but also of the 

essential factual allegations.” In re First Rsrv. Mgmt., L.P., 671 S.W.3d 

653, 661–62 (Tex. 2023) (citations and internal quotation marks 

omitted). We construe the pleadings liberally in favor of the plaintiff 

and look to the pleader’s intent. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226. But courts 

“cannot use a liberal construction of the petition as a license to read into 

the petition a claim that it does not contain.” Flowers v. Flowers, 407 

4 Neither party has challenged the court of appeals’ ruling as to the 

University in this Court. 
8 

S.W.3d 452, 458 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2013, no pet.). If the 

pleadings lack sufficient facts to affirmatively demonstrate the trial 

court’s jurisdiction but do not affirmatively demonstrate incurable 

defects in jurisdiction, the plaintiff should be afforded the opportunity 

to amend. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226–27.5

Labor Code Section 21.051 provides that “[a]n employer commits 

an unlawful employment practice if because of . . . age the employer . . . 

discharges an individual, or discriminates in any other manner against 

an individual in connection with . . . the terms, conditions, or privileges 

of employment.” TEX. LAB. CODE § 21.051(1). The statutory prohibition 

against age discrimination applies to an individual who is “40 years of 

age or older.” Id. § 21.101. 

The key question in this case is whether Martinez alleges 

sufficient facts to demonstrate that the TTU System and the Board can 

be liable to Martinez as an “employer” under Chapter 21. The statute 

defines “employer” to include a “state agency, or state instrumentality, 

regardless of the number of individuals employed.” Id. § 21.002(8)(D). 

This Court held in Rennels that a plaintiff “need not show that she 

worked directly for the [defendant] to maintain standing under 

5 We have previously analogized pleadings-based jurisdictional pleas to 

special exceptions. See State v. Lueck, 290 S.W.3d 876, 884 (Tex. 2009) (“While 

[filing special exceptions is] available, and certainly not objectionable, we have 

never held that the State is precluded from challenging pleadings in a plea to 

the jurisdiction when it could have done so via special exceptions . . . .”); Tex. 

A&M Univ. Sys. v. Koseoglu, 233 S.W.3d 835, 840 (Tex. 2007) (noting that the 

outcome of granting a pleadings-based plea to the jurisdiction is similar to the 

outcome of granting special exceptions). 
9 

section 21.055.”6 994 S.W.2d at 144. Borrowing the Title VII standard 

articulated in Sibley Memorial Hospital v. Wilson, 488 F.2d 1338 (D.C. 

Cir. 1973), the Rennels Court concluded that a plaintiff may maintain a 

Chapter 21 claim against a defendant in the absence of a direct 

employment relationship if: 

(1) “the defendant is an employer within the statutory definition 

of the Act”; 

(2) “some sort of employment relationship exists between the 

plaintiff and a third party”; and 

(3) “the defendant controlled access to the plaintiff’s employment 

opportunities and denied or interfered with that access based 

on unlawful criteria.” 

994 S.W.2d at 147 (citations omitted). 

In applying Rennels, our courts of appeals have consistently 

required evidence that the defendant exercised control over some 

specific aspect of the employment process and took some unlawful action 

consistent with that control. For example, in University of Texas at El 

Paso v. Ochoa, the court held that a custodian employed by a staffing 

agency and assigned to work at UTEP raised a fact issue whether she 

could sue UTEP because there was evidence that UTEP had offered her 

a permanent position but UTEP’s head of custodial services directed the 

agency to end her assignment there. 410 S.W.3d 327, 334–35 (Tex. 

App.—El Paso 2013, pet. denied); see also Univ. of Tex.–Pan Am. v. 

Miller, No. 03-10-00710-CV, 2013 WL 4818355, at *5 (Tex. App.—Austin 

6 Although Rennels involved a claim under Section 21.055 (which 

governs retaliation), both statutes refer to unlawful conduct by “[a]n 

employer,” and the parties agree that Rennels applies to Martinez’s claims 

under Section 21.051. 
10 

Aug. 28, 2013, no pet.) (holding that a UTPA police officer could sue the 

UT System because his employment required a commission through the 

UT System’s police department and that department’s director 

terminated his commission and recommended that UTPA fire him). In 

Rennels itself, we held that a pathologist could sue a hospital that was 

not her direct employer because the hospital had contractual authority 

to influence her employer’s promotion decisions and she presented 

evidence that the hospital’s CEO directly encouraged her employer not 

to promote her. 994 S.W.2d at 147–48. Conversely, in Johnson v. Scott 

Fetzer Co., the court of appeals held that a fired vacuum-cleaner 

salesman could not sue the vacuum manufacturer because it only 

controlled how its vacuums were sold and had no right to hire or fire 

salespersons or set work hours, salary, commissions, or bonuses. 124 

S.W.3d 257, 264 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2003, pet. denied); see also

Holloway v. Dall. Cnty. Hosp. Dist., No. 05-20-01114-CV, 2022 WL 

17883799, at *17 (Tex. App.—Dallas Dec. 23, 2022, no pet.) (holding a 

hospital contractor’s employee could not sue the hospital because the 

hospital’s complaints about performance deficiencies did not equate to 

interference with his employment and the hospital’s right to control who 

worked on its account did not indicate operational control over the 

contractor). 

Here, of course, we are not asked to decide whether there is 

evidence to support Martinez’s claims. The plea to the jurisdiction 

challenges only Martinez’s pleadings. We therefore must determine 

whether the petition alleges sufficient facts to affirmatively 
11 

demonstrate that Martinez has a Section 21.051 claim against the 

TTU System and the Board. See Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226. 

III. Analysis 

The TTU System and the Board both argue that Martinez’s 

petition is insufficient to support a Section 21.051 claim against them. 

They assert the petition alleges no facts to support the third element of 

the Rennels test—that either the TTU System or the Board “controlled 

access to [Martinez]’s employment opportunities and denied or 

interfered with that access.” 994 S.W.2d at 147. We agree. 

In concluding that both the TTU System and the Board 

“controlled access” to Martinez’s employment opportunities, the court of 

appeals relied on unpleaded provisions in the Education Code that 

generally describe the TTU System and the Health Sciences Center’s 

system of governance. See TEX. EDUC. CODE §§ 109.001–.255, 

110.01–.16. Section 109.001 states that the TTU System is “composed 

of all those institutions and entities presently under the governance, 

control, jurisdiction, and management of the [Board]” and that “[t]he 

governance, control, jurisdiction, organization, and management of the 

[TTU System] is hereby vested in the present [Board].” Id. § 109.001(a), 

(c). And Section 110.01 states that the Health Sciences Center is “a 

separate institution . . . under the direction, management, and control 

of the [Board].” Id. § 110.01; see also id. § 110.02 (“The [Board] has the 

same powers of governance, control, jurisdiction, and management over 

the Health Sciences Center as it exercises over the [TTU System] and 

its components.”). Based on these provisions, the court of appeals 

concluded that the TTU System, through the Board, “is in a legal 
12 

position to regulate employment decisions of the [Health Sciences] 

Center.” 683 S.W.3d at 116. 

Even assuming that the Board (or the TTU System, acting 

through the Board) is “in a legal position” to control employment 

decisions at the Health Sciences Center,7 Rennels requires more. To 

affirmatively demonstrate a Chapter 21 claim under Rennels, a plaintiff 

must allege sufficient facts that the defendant actually controlled access 

to the plaintiff’s employment opportunities and that it denied or 

interfered with that access. As both Rennels itself and the cases that 

apply it have demonstrated, a defendant that is not the plaintiff’s direct 

employer can be liable only if it had operational control over employment 

decisions and took direct action against the plaintiff consistent with that 

control. See Rennels, 994 S.W.2d at 147 (imposing Chapter 21 liability 

based on evidence that the defendant was permitted by contract to 

influence the plaintiff’s employment status and did in fact do so); 

Holloway, 2022 WL 17883799, at *17 (rejecting a Chapter 21 claim 

because the defendant’s contractual right of control over the plaintiff’s 

employer did not include operational control over employees); Johnson, 

124 S.W.3d at 264 (rejecting a Chapter 21 claim when the defendant’s 

control did not include employment decisions). 

7 The TTU System and the Board argue that they cannot as a matter of 

law exercise control over Martinez’s employment opportunities because the 

Board has enacted “Regents’ Rules” that give each institution’s president sole 

responsibility for making high-level appointments at that institution. Even if 

we were to read these “Regents’ Rules” as a limit on the Board’s statutory 

authority, the mere existence of these rules does not conclusively preclude a 

plaintiff from alleging that the Board, as a matter of fact, exercised actual

control over and interfered with his or her access to an employment 

opportunity. 
13 

The Board’s general right to “direct[], manage[], and control” the 

Health Sciences Center does not equate to actual control over Martinez’s 

employment opportunities. This principle is similar to our longstanding 

rule, derived from the Restatement, that forbids imposing liability based 

solely on a general right of control over the work of an independent 

contractor. See Koch Refin. Co. v. Chapa, 11 S.W.3d 153, 155 (Tex. 1999) 

(citing RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 414 cmt. c (AM. L. INST. 

1965)); Redinger v. Living, Inc., 689 S.W.2d 415, 418 (Tex. 1985) (holding 

that a general right to order work started and stopped or to inspect 

progress and receive reports is insufficient to establish a general 

contractor’s liability for an independent contractor’s work). We have 

held in such cases that a defendant is not liable unless it “controls the 

details or methods of the independent contractor’s work to such an 

extent that the contractor cannot perform the work as it chooses.” Fifth 

Club, Inc. v. Ramirez, 196 S.W.3d 788, 792 (Tex. 2006) (citing Koch 

Refin., 11 S.W.3d at 155–56). In the same way, the Board’s general right 

to oversee the Health Sciences Center is insufficient to demonstrate 

control over the details or methods of the Health Sciences Center’s 

employment decisions. Accordingly, the provisions of the Education 

Code on which the court of appeals relied do not satisfy the Rennels

standard, i.e., that the TTU System or the Board “controlled access to 

[Martinez]’s employment opportunities.” 994 S.W.2d at 147. 

The court of appeals’ expansive reading of Rennels is problematic 

for two other reasons. First, it would essentially make every parent 

corporation liable under Chapter 21 for the employment actions of a 

subsidiary or affiliated entity governed by the parent. This would be 
14 

contrary to well-settled Texas law. See SSP Partners v. Gladstrong Invs. 

(USA) Corp., 275 S.W.3d 444, 455 (Tex. 2008) (“We have never held 

corporations liable for each other’s obligations merely because of 

centralized control, mutual purposes, and shared finances.”); Lucas v. 

Tex. Indus., Inc., 696 S.W.2d 372, 374 (Tex. 1984) (“There must be 

something more than mere unity of financial interest, ownership and 

control for a court to treat the subsidiary as the alter ego of the parent 

and make the parent liable for the subsidiary’s tort.”). 

Likewise, the court of appeals erred to the extent it relied on 

Dr. Mitchell’s dual roles, without more, to conclude that Martinez 

pleaded a basis for the TTU System’s liability. See 683 S.W.3d at 117. 

An allegation that Dr. Mitchell simultaneously served as chancellor of 

the TTU System and president of the Health Sciences Center, without 

more, does not demonstrate that the TTU System controlled access to 

Martinez’s employment opportunities with the Health Sciences Center. 

See First Rsrv., 671 S.W.3d at 660–61 (“[I]t is entirely appropriate for 

directors of a parent corporation to serve as directors of its subsidiary, 

and that fact alone may not serve to expose the parent corporation to 

liability for its subsidiary’s acts.” (alteration in original) (quoting United 

States v. Bestfoods, 524 U.S. 51, 69 (1998))); see also Turner v. Baylor 

Richardson Med. Ctr., 476 F.3d 337, 344 (5th Cir. 2007) (concluding that 

evidence of two entities’ common ownership or management, standing 

alone, was insufficient to establish both entities’ employer status under 

Title VII). 

The court of appeals nevertheless concluded that Martinez’s 

allegations were sufficient to survive the plea to the jurisdiction. 
15 

Reading Martinez’s allegations in a favorable light and “in conjunction 

with” the Education Code provisions vesting the Board with a general 

right to manage the Health Sciences Center, the court of appeals 

concluded that Martinez’s petition “reasonably leads one to see the 

following picture painted”: the TTU System, through its Board, “decided 

to rid” the Health Sciences Center of older employees and “directed” 

Dr. Mitchell to implement this policy, which he did. 683 S.W.3d at 116. 

We conclude the facts as alleged in Martinez’s petition, even when 

liberally construed in her favor, see Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226, cannot 

be read to paint that picture. No one disputes that Martinez alleged 

sufficient facts to support a Section 21.051 claim against her direct 

employer, the Health Sciences Center, through the alleged acts of its 

president, Dr. Mitchell. But Martinez presents no factual allegations 

that the TTU System or the Board, as opposed to Dr. Mitchell, controlled 

access to Martinez’s employment and denied or interfered with that 

access. Contrary to the court of appeals’ gloss, Martinez’s petition 

nowhere alleges facts demonstrating that the TTU System or the Board 

“decided to rid” the Health Sciences Center of older employees or 

“directed” Dr. Mitchell to implement such a policy.

Martinez’s petition includes allegations that the Board “wanted 

to reduce the average age of [the Health Sciences Center’s] senior 

leadership” and that the Board “asked Dr. Mitchell to reduce the age of 

senior leadership at [the Health Sciences Center].” These allegations 

are insufficient to affirmatively demonstrate that the Board controlled 

access to Martinez’s employment and denied or interfered with her 

employment. Martinez expressly rests these allegations on 
16 

Dr. Mitchell’s email, which she attaches and references in the petition. 

See City of Abilene v. Carter, 530 S.W.3d 268, 276 (Tex. App.—Eastland 

2017, no pet.) (“[A] document attached and referred to in a pleading shall 

be deemed a part of the pleading for all purposes.” (citing TEX. R. CIV.

P. 59)). Yet that email states only that the Board was interested in 

“succession planning”—a best practice for any institution hoping to 

endure beyond the short-term—because of low employment and 

difficulty in recruiting at that time due to a tight labor market. No 

reasonable reading of the email supports an allegation that the Board 

controlled access to and interfered with Martinez’s employment.8 See

State v. Lueck, 290 S.W.3d 876, 885–86 (Tex. 2009) (analyzing the 

plaintiff’s pleadings together with an attached email and concluding 

they affirmatively negated the existence of an alleged violation of the 

Whistleblower Act against TxDOT).9

8 Indeed, succession planning frequently is accomplished by 

cross-training existing employees to create redundant knowledge within an 

organization. It does not require terminating anyone but only distributing 

knowledge within an institution to guard against the disruption that results 

from the departure of an employee who was the single repository of key 

information. See generally CHRISTEE GABOUR ATWOOD, SUCCESSION 

PLANNING BASICS 13 (2d ed. 2020) (ebook) (“The purpose of succession 

planning is to prepare your organization for the challenges and opportunities 

associated with changes in critical key positions. You’ll accomplish this by 

developing employees to ensure that you have qualified candidates ready to fill 

those key positions when a vacancy occurs.”); WILLIAM J. ROTHWELL, 

EFFECTIVE SUCCESSION PLANNING 6 (4th ed. 2010) (“[Succession planning] is 

thus a deliberate and systematic effort by an organization to ensure leadership 

continuity in key positions, retain and develop intellectual and knowledge 

capital for the future, and encourage individual advancement.”). 

9 The dissent points to a letter from the U.S. Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission, also attached to Martinez’s petition, that 
17 

Martinez also alleges that Dr. Mitchell terminated her “to 

appease the Board of Regents” by lowering the average age of his senior 

advisors. At most, this allegation may demonstrate Dr. Mitchell’s 

motivation. But it is insufficient to support a claim that the TTU System 

or the Board—neither of which is alleged to be Martinez’s direct 

employer—exercised control over Dr. Mitchell’s decision to terminate 

Martinez herself, much less that it directed him to do so. 

In sum, Martinez’s petition fails to allege that the TTU System or 

the Board “controlled access” to Martinez’s employment opportunities 

and “interfered with that access.” The petition therefore does not allege 

facts that affirmatively demonstrate a Section 21.051 claim against the 

TTU System or the Board under Rennels.10 Given this, and the absence 

purportedly “corroborates” Martinez’s allegations. Post at 10 (Young, J., 

dissenting). In that letter, the EEOC finds “there is reasonable cause to believe 

that Respondent”—expressly defined in the letter to be the Health Sciences 

Center—“discharged [Martinez] because of her age.” (Emphasis added.) But 

whether the letter corroborates Martinez’s claim against the Health Sciences 

Center is irrelevant because, as we noted, the Health Sciences Center does not 

contest jurisdiction. The more important point to be gleaned from the EEOC 

letter is that it makes no findings about the TTU System or the Board, the only 

two entities over which the trial court’s jurisdiction remains in question. 

10 Our dissenting colleagues assert that our decision is inconsistent with 

the standard that we construe the pleadings liberally. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 

at 226; see post at 7 (Young, J., dissenting). But like the court of appeals, their 

approach departs from our precedents by prioritizing the pleader’s intent over 

the pleadings themselves. Rather than look to Martinez’s allegations and 

construe them in light of her intent, the dissent appears to suggest we should 

focus on her intent and then determine whether her petition “permit[s] the 

inference” that she has alleged a claim under Rennels against the TTU System 

and the Board. Post at 11 (Young, J., dissenting). We rejected a similar 

argument in County of Cameron v. Brown, 80 S.W.3d 549 (Tex. 2002). There, 

we held that the plaintiffs’ allegation that failed lighting on a causeway 
18 

of any other alleged basis for imposing liability against the TTU System 

or the Board—as opposed to the Health Sciences Center, which concedes 

it employed Martinez and does not contest jurisdiction—the trial court 

should have granted the plea to the jurisdiction with respect to the 

TTU System and the Board. 

The TTU System and the Board seek rendition of judgment and 

dismissal of Martinez’s claim against them. But as the defendants 

conceded in their briefing in the court of appeals, their jurisdictional 

plea challenged only Martinez’s pleadings. 

Ordinarily, when a jurisdictional plea challenges only the 

pleadings, the remedy is to remand for an opportunity to replead. 

Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226–27. That remedy is particularly 

appropriate here. The TTU System and the Board did not expressly 

assert that they might not qualify as an “employer” under Chapter 21 

until they filed their answer the day before their jurisdictional plea was 

heard. Until then, Martinez might have been unaware of the need to 

plead factual allegations to establish the elements for imposing liability 

under Rennels. 

Martinez may well be able to cure this pleading deficiency on 

remand. As our dissenting colleagues correctly suggest, repleading to 

satisfy Rennels may not be a heavy lift given the facts Martinez has 

constituted a premises defect was insufficient, and a plea to the jurisdiction 

should have been granted, because the plaintiffs failed to allege that they did 

not actually know of the condition, a “necessary premises-defect element.” Id.

at 558. “Moreover, we disagree with the court of appeals’ conclusion that we 

can infer this element from the pleadings.” Id. Like here, the Court remanded 

to allow the plaintiffs an opportunity to replead. Id. at 558–59. 
19 

already alleged. But Rennels requires that Martinez allege facts 

regarding both the exercise of control and interference with Martinez’s 

employment by each of the TTU System and the Board. We decline our 

dissenting colleagues’ invitation to dilute those requirements, even if 

Martinez’s live pleading falls just short of the mark.11

IV. Conclusion 

Martinez failed to allege facts that affirmatively demonstrate the 

court’s jurisdiction over her claims against the TTU System or the Board 

because, as currently pleaded, her petition does not contain sufficient 

facts to demonstrate that either the TTU System or the Board could be 

liable to her under Section 21.051. The trial court therefore should have 

granted the TTU System and the Board’s plea to the jurisdiction. But 

because Martinez’s petition does not affirmatively demonstrate that she 

cannot cure the jurisdictional defect, she should be afforded an 

opportunity to replead. We therefore reverse the court of appeals’ 

judgment in part and remand to the trial court for further proceedings. 

 

 Rebeca A. Huddle 

 Justice 

OPINION DELIVERED: June 14, 2024 

 

11 Martinez also asserts that discovery may reveal documents 

demonstrating that the TTU System in fact was her direct employer at one 

time. That theory, if pleaded, may well be sufficient to defeat a jurisdictional 

plea by the TTU System. But it is nowhere pleaded in Martinez’s live petition 

and therefore cannot serve as a basis for denying the plea at this stage.