Court Opinion

ID: 9771336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:39:24.822429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:28.684746
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Travis County urges in its motion for rehearing several points to which we should respond briefly.
*721The County contends first that we have misunderstood and misstated the evidence and the verdict, referring to that part of our opinion wherein we have summarized the controversy between the parties. The County argues that the jury, “[contrary to the Court’s assertion, ,.. specifically rejected, [much of that] evidence and found that there was no continued retaliation by” the County against Colunga. This is not correct.
The County bases its argument on the “no” answers given by the jury to special-issue inquiries asking whether the County retaliated against Colunga after her reinstatement. These “no” answers symbolize merely the jury’s failure to find on the factual propositions submitted to them and determined nothing.
The County argues next that we erred in our statements that the County terminated Colunga’s employment, for “the jury found only that ... Colunga’s employment was terminated for reporting a violation of law to Richard Moya.” In contrast, the County, through its Commissioners Court, reinstated Colunga immediately after the completion of her grievance proceeding and, it is said, never ratified Moya’s decision.
The County’s argument is transparently incorrect. The jury found specifically that Colunga’s employment was “terminated” and it is undisputed that she was employed by the County. Even without that specific finding, however, the trial-court judgment against the County, on Colunga’s statutory cause of action, supplies by operation of law the presumed finding that the County and not Moya “terminated” her employment. Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 279 (Supp.1988); Smith v. Henger, 148 Tex. 456, 226 S.W.2d 425, 431 (1950).
The County withdraws from the position originally taken in its brief to this Court, that “the Texas Department of Agriculture is the 'appropriate law enforcement authority’ ” to which Colunga could have reported the violations and thereby come within the protection of the statute. (County’s brief, emphasis added). On rehearing, the County argues instead that the Texas Department of Agriculture is simply “the most appropriate authority.” Suffice it to say that the statute under which Colunga recovered does not require that the violation of law be reported to “the most appropriate” law enforcement authority. Rather, art. 6252-16a, § 2 requires only that the report be made “to an appropriate law enforcement authority” (emphasis supplied).
The County contends finally that our decision conflicts with that in the Moreau case and that we failed “to consider” Garza v. City of Mission, 684 S.W.2d 148 (Tex.App.1984, writ dism’d), the only other appellate opinion that deals with art. 6252-16a at the present time. While we do not adopt the entirety of the reasoning in Mor-eau, we do not reject it either. We do adopt, of course, the principle stated in the Moreau opinion — “an appropriate law enforcement authority,” within the meaning of art. 6252-16a, § 2, includes a public authority having the power and duty of inquiring into the lawfulness of the questioned conduct and causing its cessation if the conduct appears to be a violation of the law. Moreau, 697 S.W.2d at 474. That interpretation of the statutory language is sufficient for the present appeal for the reasons given at length above.
The County’s contention that we failed “to consider” the City of Mission case is incorrect, as is true with most assertions that a court failed “to consider” one thing or another. The City of Mission case involved only two issues: (1) whether the trial court abused its discretion in refusing the plaintiff’s application for a temporary injunction; and (2) the proper meaning of art. 6252-16a, § 3(b), wherein the Legislature created a rebuttable presumption. Neither of these issues pertains in any way to any matter we are required to decide in the present appeal.
For the foregoing reasons, we overrule the County's motion for rehearing.