The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether the city of Denton illegally fired two municipal power company employees for blowing the whistle on a former city council member who leaked documents to the Denton Record-Chronicle.
Justices heard oral arguments Wednesday in what is now the city's second appeal of a lawsuit it first lost in 2020. One central question: whether then-council member Keely Briggs was representing the city when she shared documents with the newspaper concerning the proposed construction of a natural gas power plant.
The city claimed she was not a city employee at the time, since council members are elected officials paid only a stipend. That would mean the two Denton Municipal Electric employees aren't protected under a whistleblower statute, the city's attorney Christopher Kratovil told the justices Wednesday.
"We have a volunteer, unpaid elected official, who my friends on the other side don't even contend is another public employee," Kratovil said during oral arguments.
Former DME employees Michael Grim and Jim Maynard sued the city for firing them in 2017. They argue they were fired because, 10 months prior, they had told the then-city attorney that Briggs shared documents related to the potential Denton Energy Center in violation of the Texas Public Information Act.
A Dallas County jury found Grim and Maynard’s firing violated the whistleblower law and awarded them more than $2.7 million in lost wages, benefits, damages and front pay.
Briggs...
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