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Texas 13th Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi/Edinburg)
Ex-Principal Gets Another Opportunity
To Fight Firing Over Leaked Nude Selfie
Ruling: A principal who was fired after an unknown person assessed, and publicly leaked, a nude selfie photo she had taken on her phone at her house can continue pursuing a gender discrimination lawsuit against the district despite having lost another lawsuit she had filed against the district and education commissioner. Edinburg CISD v. Cristina L. Esparza, No. 13-21-00412-CV. Issued Dec. 1.

Background
ECISD fired middle school principal Esparza from her term contract in 2016 after a nude selfie photo she had taken on her personal cell phone at her house was accessed by an unknown person without Esparza’s involvement. Esparza said she had only emailed the photo to her husband, who was out of town at his oilfield job.

The photo was distributed among students, was posted on social media, became a huge controversy in the community and was widely reported on by the media.

In 2017, the education commissioner upheld Esparza’s firing on a finding that the publicity over the leaked photo would likely impair her future effectiveness as a principal — and thus made it difficult for ECISD to continue to employ her.

Two Lawsuits
Esparza sued ECISD and the commissioner, but lost when a Thirteenth Court panel, in 2020, agreed with the commissioner’s finding that Esparza’s firing was justified for “good cause.”

Esparza had also filed a separate gender discrimination lawsuit against ECISD, after getting permission to sue from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). She claimed that ECISD had treated her, as a female, differently from male principals who had been accused of misconduct (such as engaging in extramarital affairs or being accused of sexual harassment).

A Thirteenth Court panel, in 2019, rejected ECISD’s attempt to overrule the refusal by the trial judge to dismiss Esparza’s gender discrimination lawsuit. This latest appellate decision arises from ECISD’s attempt to reverse the trial judge’s subsequent refusal to dismiss.

This time, ECISD pointed to the 2020 final outcome of Esparza’s other lawsuit — in which the court affirmed the commissioner’s finding that ECISD had “good cause” to fire her — as meeting the minimum legal standard to show that the district had a nondiscriminatory reason for firing her.

Disagreed
A three-member Thirteenth Court panel, in this decision, disagreed, and concluded that state law and prior court decisions allow Esparza to continue litigating her TWC-authorized gender discrimination claim despite the prior judicial ruling upholding the commissioner’s determination that she had been fired for “good cause.”

The justices sent the lawsuit back to the trial judge for further proceedings.