County Whistleblower Suit Remanded to Trial Court
January 13, 2014In this whistleblower suit against Dallas County, the County filed a plea to the jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity. The plaintiff, a former deputy constable, complained of illegal activity and retaliation in his employment division to the Dallas County Commissions Court. The County contended, however, that this entity does not fall within the confines of the Whistleblower Act and, therefore, the plaintiff did not have an objective good faith belief that he was reporting the misdeeds to an appropriate law enforcement body. While the Court found that “an appropriate law enforcement authority must be actually responsible for regulating under or enforcing the law allegedly violated,” it nevertheless remanded the proceedings to the trial court because the record did not show that evidence was presented about the plaintiff’s good faith belief that the Commissioners Court was the appropriate body. This was particularly true given that some of the County’s jurisdictional arguments were newly raised on appeal.
