Jury awards $12.5 million to former Hutto city manager in racial discrimination suit

A federal jury awarded $8 million in damaged to former Hutto City Manager Odis Jones, seen here in a news conference in 2017, in a discrimination lawsuit against the city.  
American-Statesman File Photo

Austin American-Statesman
Claire Osborn - Austin American-Statesman
March 3, 2023

A federal jury on Thursday awarded $12.5 million in damages to former Hutto City Manager Odis Jones, who sued the city in 2020 saying he was racially discriminated against when the City Council voided his $412,000 separation agreement.

After deliberating for five hours, the jury found that the city had breached its contract with Jones and also discriminated against him on the basis of race. Jones is Black.

"I want to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ for keeping me, and I thank the jury for restoring my good name," Jones said in a written statement after the verdict was announced in the federal courthouse in Austin in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane.

Jones' lawyer, Holt Lackey, declined to comment on Thursday.

The Hutto City Council said it has directed city attorney George Hyde to seek a court order asking the trial court to reverse the jury's decision, officials said a news release on Friday.

"We are disappointed in the jury's erroneous verdict and excessive award," Hyde said in the release. "There is absolutely no evidence that this case was ever about race. We are absolutely pursuing all means to get this corrected and cleared."

Jones was the city manager of Hutto from 2016-2019. In November 2019, the City Council approved a severance agreement with Jones for $412,000. It consisted of $283,000 in salary, $58,000 in vacation and unpaid sick leave and benefits worth $71,000. Jones said at the time that he was leaving the city because he had achieved his goal of restoring solvency to the entity.

When the City Council rescinded his separation agreement on Dec. 3, 2020, a city spokeswoman said it was because the agreement was never brought back to the council for final approval of details and terms, as required by the city charter.

Jones filed his racial discrimination suit the following week. It also was filed against then-Council Member Mike Snyder, Council Member Tanner Rose and City Manager Warren Hutmacher. 

Lackey, Jones' lawyer, said during closing arguments of the four-day trial on Thursday that the city breached its contract with Jones by rescinding the separation agreement and making disparaging comments about Jones. Lackey also said Jones was discriminated against because the city never voided separation agreements with employees who were white.

Hyde, the city's lawyer, said during closing arguments that the separation agreement was voided because it did not follow city charter rules. He also said that Jones had breached the separation contract by not telling council members before he left about certain financial agreements, including one that Jones made for the city with a developer. Hyde also said the city did not discriminate against Jones.

Lackey said a former Hutto police chief, Byron Frankland, had testified in the trial that Snyder once told Frankland something disparaging about Jones. "He (Snyder) told him Black people were crooks and Odis Jones was a crook," said Lackey.

Lackey also said that Jones did not breach his contract with the city because he didn't withhold financial information from the city. Jones had met with the interim city manager and was available to answer any questions after he left the city, Lackey said.

"Now for the first time, almost three years later, the city is trying to argue some things you can see in the record that they never argued before and that is that Mr. Jones didn't disclose as much information as he should have in his exit," Lackey said.

An allegation that 44 employees were laid off at the city after Jones left because Jones hadn't told the city about a budget shortfall was false, Lackey said.

Hutto City Council Member Peter Gordon testified during the trial that the layoffs happened because the city was overstaffed and the budget had nothing to do with it, Lackey said.

"They (the defense) are trying to get into a time machine and go back and invent this case," said Lackey.

Hyde said that race was not a factor in the City Council's decision to rescind Jones' separation agreement.

"There was evidence presented to show there were other reasons besides race," Hyde said. Hyde said Jones had threatened council members and also called one council member "out to fight."

Jones breached his separation agreement by withholding financial information from the city, Hyde said.

During his tenure as city manager, Jones made a more than $4 million agreement with Legacy Development to develop the Perfect Game baseball project without getting required approval from the City Council, said Hyde. The city lost the project to the city of Cedar Park after five lawsuits involving the city of Hutto, a city development company, two developers including Legacy, and a loan company were filed.

Jones also didn't tell City Council members before he left that he had approved several separation agreements totaling more than $200,000 with city employees, Hyde said. Jones did not get approval from the City Council as required by the city charter to make the agreements, said Hyde.

Jones also hired other attorneys for city business without getting the required approval from the city's attorney at the time, said Hyde. The money for the additional attorneys was not included in the city's budget, he said.

Hyde also said the city didn't make any disparaging comments in the document it sent to Jones about rescinding his agreement.

Colin Walsh, a Dallas employment law attorney, said on Friday that there have been "really high" damages in two recent employment discrimination lawsuits in Texas, including when Black workers sued a Dallas company for discrimination and were awarded $70 million in February 2022. A Black woman sued FedEx for discrimination and won a $365 million verdict in Tarrant County in October 2022.

"Juries are really punishing employers who engage in race discrimination," said Walsh.

This article has been updated to correct the amount of the damages awarded by the jury.