[Download] "Texas Parks & Wildlife Department v. Dearing" by In the Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Texas Parks & Wildlife Department v. Dearing
- Author : In the Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
- Release Date : January 08, 2004
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 78 KB
Description
This is an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a plea to the jurisdiction and the certification of a class action asserting disparate-impact liability for age discrimination under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (the "Act"). See Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 21.051 (West 1996). Appellees Milburn Dearing, Kenneth Head, Mike Warren, and others (collectively Dearing) brought a class-action lawsuit against their employer, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, asserting breach of contract and age discrimination resulting from the Departments reclassification of their game warden positions. The lawsuit sought a mandamus, damages, and declaratory and equitable relief. The Department filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting sovereign immunity and Dearings untimeliness and failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The district court granted the plea as to the contract, declaratory-judgment, and mandamus claims but denied it as to the age-discrimination claim. The district court also entered an order granting Dearings motion for class certification of the age-discrimination claim. The Department appeals the denial of its plea and the class-certification order. We affirm the district courts denial of the Departments plea to the jurisdiction on the issues of timeliness and exhaustion of administrative remedies. We reverse the order certifying the class because we conclude that the only cause of action for which it was certified--a disparate-impact theory of liability for age discrimination--is not available under the Act.