Texas Employees Can Bring Tort Claims Against Coworkers (2)

Texas’ anti-discrimination law allows employees to pursue defamation and fraud common-law tort claims against coworkers, even if those claims arise from the same workplace bias allegations against their employer, the state’s high court ruled.

Common-law cause of action exists for employees in Texas when individual tort claims are related to the same workplace discrimination allegations against the employer in the underlying case, the justices held Friday in a lawsuit from Southern Methodist University law professor Cheryl Butler who accused SMU and its employees of discriminating and retaliating against her by denying her tenure application.

Butler’s suit claimed violations of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act and federal workplace discrimination laws, and asserted various tort claims against SMU and several officials, including its then-provost, the law school dean, vice president of executive affairs, and the tenure committee chair.

The law “subjects only employers to statutory liability for covered discriminatory and retaliatory conduct and does not purport, either expressly or by implication, to immunize individuals from liability for their own tortious conduct merely because that conduct could also give rise to a” claim of workplace bias, harassment or retaliation “against a different defendant,” Justice Debra H. Lehrmann wrote for the unanimous court.

The ruling is a significant win for Butler, who sought to revive her tort claims after a federal district court’s summary judgment ruling found that her fraud, defamation, and conspiracy-to-defame claims against the individual defendants arose from the same facts as her suit against the university. She’d claimed her tenure denial resulted from racial discrimination and retaliation, with her coworkers’ defamatory statements being part of a scheme to cover up these motives.

The opinion also cleared up inconsistent rulings in Texas state and federal courts on the legal question. Those rulings sought to interpret the bounds of the state high court’s Waffle House Inc. v. Williams and BC v. Steak N Shake Operations Inc., which only recognized TCHRA’s preemption of tort claims by employees against employers.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified the cause of action question before the state high court after Butler appealed the summary judgment order.

Recoverable Damages

Lehrmann also used Friday’s opinion to clarify the damages a plaintiff like Butler could potentially recover.

A plaintiff can only recover once for the same injury in tort litigation, even when alleging claims against multiple defendants, she wrote.

This means that Butler isn’t entitled to a double recovery for pursuing discrimination claims against her employer and recognized common law claims against individual coworkers stemming from the same injury, the opinion added.

“A plaintiff may allege that an employee’s common law intentional tort and an employer’s unlawful employment practices both contributed to an adverse employment action. But she may recover lost wages or back pay only once,” the high court said. “Likewise, she may recover either future lost wages or reinstatement from the employer, but not both.”

The high court also expressed skepticism over some of Butler’s defamation claim, saying it’s “far from clear” whether defamatory statements caused her tenure denial. However, it didn’t further assess the merits of Butler’s state law claims beyond the scope of the certified question.

“But of course, the publication of false, defamatory statements can also give rise to other redressable injuries such as loss of reputation and mental anguish, irrespective of whether those statements were a motivating factor in the complained-of employment action,” the opinion said.

At December oral arguments, Butler’s attorney, Ezra Ishmael Young, maintained that Texas Supreme Court precedent suggests that the TCHRA doesn’t expressly bar tort claims against coworkers.

Young lauded Friday’s decision in a statement to Bloomberg Law.

“Hopefully this precedent also sends a strong signal to law schools around the nation that spurious tenure denials will not be tolerated,” he said.

Butler “is hopeful that, after all this time, SMU Law comes to the table to make things right,” the statement added. “If nothing else, SMU Law’s dubious rationale for denying her tenure—that she is bad at tort law—can finally be put to rest.”

Kirsten M. Castañeda of Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP, who argued for the defendants, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

She’d urged the court to adopt the district court’s analysis. High court precedent already held that the TCHRA establishes a statutory scheme that comprehensively addresses and exclusively governs unlawful employment practices, including discrimination and retaliation, by employers and preempts common-law tort claims against an employer for such conduct, Castañeda said.

The case is Butler v. Collins, Tex., No. 24-0616, ruling issued 5/23/25.