The Fort Worth Independent School District Administration building, at 7060 Camp Bowie Blvd.
Chris Torres
ctorres@star-telegram.com
Fort Worth ISD is asking a judge to permanently throw out a lawsuit filed in 2012 by a former Arlington Heights High School administrator accusing the district of whistleblower retaliation, and although a trial was scheduled, it is now delayed.
In August 2010, Joseph Palazzolo, a former assistant principal and campus diversity representative at Arlington Heights, filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency alleging falsification of attendance records, sexual misconduct, and discrimination at the high school.
Three months later, Palazzolo was fired by the district upon grounds that school officials said were “unrelated to his reports of wrongdoing.” Palazzolo appealed his termination to TEA.
More than a decade later, a lengthy and complicated lawsuit has reached another impasse between the district and Palazzolo — but there may be movement soon.
After a two-year back-and-forth with the district, in 2012, Palazzolo filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Fort Worth ISD alleging that the district fired him in retaliation for his complaints. The district said that it fired him because he himself had created a negative culture at the school.
In 2014, Fort Worth ISD was ordered to reimburse the U.S. Department of Education between $37 million and $39 million after an internal investigation found that, according to the district, a computer program miscalculated student attendance numbers.
A Wise County court awarded Palazzolo over $2.4 million in the suit, but an appeals court later reversed that judgment in 2016, ruling that the judge failed to ask the jury if the district would have fired Palazzolo regardless of his complaints. The appeals court ordered a new trial in the case.
For several years, the case bounced back and forth in appeals courts, eventually landing at the Texas Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case in 2017.
In 2019, an appeals court ruled against Fort Worth ISD’s request to dismiss the case. Since then, the case has been moving through the discovery phase.
In January, the trial court judge, 271st Judicial District Judge Brock Smith, denied a motion made by the school district to dismiss the suit. The case was moving toward a February trial date, but about a week before the scheduled trial, Fort Worth ISD filed an appeal asking the Texas Second Court of Appeals to dismiss the lawsuit entirely.
In court documents related to the appeal, the school district alleges, in part, that Palazzolo doesn’t have evidence to show he was fired in retaliation or to prove other elements of a whistleblower claim, and that he reported the misconduct to the wrong authorities.
“It’s just trash,” Palazzolo’s lawyer Warren Norred said in response to that allegation.
A new trial date has not been set, Norred said. Fort Worth ISD’s attorneys must file written arguments explaining why they believe the case should be dismissed by March 17. Palazzolo’s legal team has 20 days to file a brief after that.
The law firm representing the district did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Fort Worth ISD said the district cannot comment on pending litigation.
Staff writer Lina Ruiz contributed to this report.
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Emily Holshouser is a local news reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.