Court Opinion

ID: 9783640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:53:43.341855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:27.996433
License: Public Domain

*179LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because I cannot agree with the holding that Landsfeld’s claim is barred by the statute of limitations. The majority states that the 180-day statute of limitations began to run on March 1, 2005, the day TCPA Office Manager Jarrell Barnes told Landsfeld that he could retire or be fired on the following day for insubordination and the day that Landsfeld tendered a letter to TCPA stating that he would retire on March 31, 2005.1 If the limitations period did, indeed, begin to run on March 1, then the 180 days for filing notice with the EEOC expired before September 1, 2005, the effective date of the change in law that amended Section 311.034 of the government code to add the sentence, “Statutory prerequisites to a suit, including the provision of notice, are jurisdictional requirements in all suits against a governmental entity.”2 That is, the limitations period expired before September 1, 2005, the effective date of the amendment making statutory prerequisites, like the 180-day notice period, jurisdictional. Accordingly, under this scenario, the trial court correctly held that TCPA waived the limitations argument.
If, however, as I believe, the Texas Labor Code’s 180-day statute of limitations begins to run, at the latest, on the day the last adverse action was taken by the employer, then under the facts of this case, it began to run on the date that Landsfeld actually resigned, March 31, 2005, not March 1, the date on which the employer threatened to fire him and on which he gave notice of his future departure. On any date between March 1 and March 31, the parties could have resolved their disagreement without involving the courts, a measure that good policy should encourage. The latest adverse act taken by the employer was carrying through with the threat to accept Landsfeld’s resignation as an alternative to firing him. Had Lands-feld withdrawn his resignation before actually walking away from his employment, and had the employer carried through on its threat to fire him at that point, it would be nonsensical to hold that the limitations period for giving notice began to run on the day that Landsfeld gave notice of his intent to resign. For these reasons, I would hold that Landsfeld timely filed his notice within 180 days of the last adverse action, which was his constructive discharge on March 31, the date the employer carried through on its threat to fire or to allow Landsfeld’s resignation.
. Because I would uphold the trial court’s judgment under either scenario, I respectfully dissent.

. Majority op. at 173, 178.

. See id. at 175-76; Tex. Lab.Code Ann. § 21.202 (West 2006) Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 311.034 (West Supp.2010); Act of May 12, 2005, 79th Leg., R.S., ch. 1150, § 1, 2005 Tex. Gen. Laws 3783, 3783 (amending section 311.034) (current version at Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 311.034).