Prairie View A&M Univ. v. Chatha

Decision Date31 August 2012
Docket NumberNo. 10-0353,10-0353
PartiesPRAIRIE VIEW A&M UNIVERSITY, PETITIONER,CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFERSON v. DILJIT K. CHATHA, RESPONDENT
CourtTexas Supreme Court

PRAIRIE VIEW A&M UNIVERSITY, PETITIONER,CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFERSON
v.
DILJIT K. CHATHA, RESPONDENT

No. 10-0353

SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS

Argued December 6, 2011
OPINION DELIVERED: August 31, 2012


ON PETITION FOR REVIEW FROM THE
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST DISTRICT OF TEXAS

CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFERSON, joined by JUSTICE LEHRMANN, dissenting.

"Jurisdiction" is a term of profound consequence. Without it, a court lacks the power of adjudication. With it, a court may bind parties to a judgment. In the past, Texas courts have used the term casually, calling statutory mandates "jurisdictional" without thinking critically about its technical meaning. Our recent attempts to define the term with greater precision suggest an outcome at odds with the Court's disposition in this case. The Court's holding today is a step backwards and, for that reason, I respectfully dissent.

The Court holds that Chatha's complaint was untimely because the 180-day limitations period begins "when the employee is informed of the allegedly discriminatory employment decision, not when that decision comes to fruition." Specialty Retailers, Inc. v. DeMoranville, 933 S.W.2d

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490, 493 (Tex. 1996) (per curiam). But before a court can announce a decision on the merits, it must have the power to decide.

According to the Court, the court of appeals can decide this interlocutory appeal because a timely administrative complaint is a statutory prerequisite to filing a civil suit. If it is truly a prerequisite to suit, then the trial court has no power to hear the case. If the trial court rejects the government's jurisdictional plea, then a statute gives the court of appeals authority to rule on this non-final trial court order.1

But if, as I contend, a timely administrative complaint is not a statutory prerequisite, then the government must win or lose the old-fashioned way—on the merits. And if I am right about that, then it is not the trial court that lacks jurisdiction. We lack jurisdiction.2 A close reading of our cases, the statute, and U.S. Supreme Court precedent compels that we dismiss this case because we do not have authority to decide it.

I. Is the 180-day limitations period a "statutory prerequisite to suit"?

The Legislature has specified that "[s]tatutory prerequisites to a suit, including the provision of notice, are jurisdictional requirements in all suits against a governmental entity." TEX. GOV'T CODE § 311.034. We must decide whether compliance with the 180-day statute of limitations is a "statutory prerequisite to suit." The Court concludes that it is; I disagree, for the reasons outlined below.

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But to place this discussion in the proper context, we must examine another question. Prairie View insists that regardless of whether a timely complaint is a "statutory prerequisite," compliance with the 180-day limitations period is nonetheless jurisdictional. That is, the failure to file a timely administrative complaint strips the trial court of jurisdiction over this case. Because the Court would be required to confront that assertion if it accepted my analysis of the prerequisite issue, I turn to it first.

A. Schroeder's statement about the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act's 180-day limitations period, inessential to the holding, cannot survive Dubai and other cases.

We have previously addressed whether the Act requires exhaustion of administrative remedies before filing suit. See Schroeder v. Texas Iron Works, Inc., 813 S.W.2d 483 (Tex. 1991). Without first filing a complaint with the Texas Commission on Human Rights, Schroeder sued his former employer for age discrimination. We held that "exhaustion of administrative remedies is a mandatory prerequisite to filing a civil action alleging violations of [the Act]." Id. at 488. Even though the Act did not explicitly require exhaustion, we thought a fair reading of various statutory provisions implicitly required claimants to present their complaints to the Commission before filing suit. We held that because our statute does not provide an unconditional private right of action, schroeder's failure to file a complaint with the Commission created a jurisdictional bar to his age discrimination claim. Id. Earlier in the opinion, when outlining the statutory scheme, we noted that discrimination complaints had to be filed with the Commission within 180 days after the alleged practice occurred. Citing only a 1988 no writ decision, we stated that "[t]his time limit has been held to be mandatory and jurisdictional." Id. at 486 (citing Green v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 760 S.W.2d

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378, 380 (Tex. App.—Austin 1988, no writ)). We did not mention a United States Supreme Court case decided nine years earlier, which held that Title VII's corresponding 180-day time limit was "not a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit" but a statute of limitations—that is, mandatory but not jurisdictional. Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 393 (1982) (holding that "[t]he structure of Title VII, the congressional policy underlying it, and the reasoning of our cases all lead to this conclusion").3 We then commented, again citing only Green, that the one-year limitation period for filing suit was "also mandatory and jurisdictional." Schroeder, 813 S.W.2d at 487 n.10. Neither of these time limits was at issue in the case, as Schroeder had not filed a complaint with the Commission.

Five years later, in a per curiam opinion, we held that the plaintiff's claim was time-barred because she filed it more than 180 days after the purported discrimination occurred. Specialty Retailers, Inc. v. DeMoranville, 933 S.W.2d 490 (Tex. 1996) (per curiam). Perhaps reflecting our own "less than meticulous"4 approach to jurisdiction, we rendered judgment in the petitioners' favor, rather than dismissing the case, despite our reiteration that the 180-day time limit was "mandatory and jurisdictional." Id. at 492 (citing Schroeder, 813 S.W.2d at 485-86).

The new millennium brought a sea change. Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12 S.W.3d 71 (Tex. 2000), overhauled our approach to jurisdiction, reversing a number of decisions touting the old regime. It identified the problems with classifying a statutory mandate as "jurisdictional" and

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held that, although our older cases represented the dominant approach when they were decided, "'the modern direction of policy is to reduce the vulnerability of final judgments to attack on the ground that the tribunal lacked subject matter jurisdiction.'" Id. at 76 (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS § 11 cmt. e at 113 (1982)). We overruled Mingus v. Wadley, 285 S.W. 1084 (Tex. 1926), "to the extent that it characterized the plaintiff's failure to establish a statutory prerequisite as jurisdictional." Id. Instead, we held that "'[t]he right of a plaintiff to maintain a suit, while frequently treated as going to the question of jurisdiction, has been said to go in reality to the right of the plaintiff to relief rather than to the jurisdiction of the court to afford it.'" Id. at 76-77 (quoting 21 C.J.S. Courts § 16, at 23 (1990)).

After Dubai, we held that the Payday Law's 180-day time limit for filing an administrative complaint is mandatory but not jurisdictional. Igal v. Brightstar Info. Tech. Grp., Inc., 250 S.W.3d 78 (Tex. 2008), superseded by statute, TEX. LAB. CODE § 61.051(c). We relied on the statute's text, which "establishe[d] a procedural bar similar to a statute of limitations and does not prescribe the boundaries of jurisdiction," and reviewed our evolution of thought about the contours of jurisdiction. Id. at 83-84 (citing Dubai, 12 S.W.3d at 76). We also looked to Zipes and discussed the U.S. Supreme Court's distinction between "'a rule governing subject matter jurisdiction and an inflexible claim-processing rule.'" Id. at 85 (quoting Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 456 (2004)). Ultimately, we concluded that "the Legislature . . . created the 180-day filing limitations period as a mandatory

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condition to pursuing the administrative causes of action and not as a bar to . . . jurisdiction." Id. at 86. We observed:

Although in the past we have described a statutory time limitation in the Commission on Human Rights Act as 'mandatory and jurisdictional,' those cases predate Dubai and dealt with a different statutory scheme than presented here. See Johnson & Johnson Med., Inc. v. Sanchez, 924 S.W.2d 925, 929 (Tex. 1996); Specialty Retailers v. DeMoranville, 933 S.W.2d 490, 492 (Tex. 1996); Schroeder v. Tex. Iron Works, 813 S.W.2d 483, 486 (Tex. 1991).

Id. at 83-84 n.5.

We recently overruled Schroeder to the extent it held that the Act's two-year deadline5 for filing suit was jurisdictional. In re United Servs. Auto. Ass'n, 307 S.W.3d 299, 310 (Tex. 2010). Commenting on our "sometimes intemperate" use of the term, we observed that our courts of appeals have questioned whether Schroeder remained the law after Dubai. Id. at 306.6 We also noted that Green, the only authority cited in Schroeder, in turn relied on Mingus v. Wadley, 285 S.W. 1084 (Tex. 1926), which Dubai overruled. Id.

We then examined Schroeder's statement about the two-year deadline for filing suit. The provision that we considered, Labor Code section 21.256, was titled "Statute of Limitations," which gave some indication of the Legislature's intent. Id. at 307-08. Although the statute stated that an action "may not be brought" after two years, that language made the provision mandatory but not necessarily jurisdictional. Moreover, our procedural rules and our cases...

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