§ 114.009.Employment Contracts Exempt

A one-line exclusion that keeps employment disputes out.

An employment contract between a state agency and an employee of that agency is outside the chapter.

The exclusion follows the chapter’s subject. Section 114.002 limits it to engineering, architectural and construction work, and an employment agreement is none of those.

Stating it expressly forecloses an argument that a professional services contract with an individual is an employment contract, or the reverse.

Public employment has its own law. Grievance procedures, personnel statutes and separate waivers govern those disputes, and each carries its own remedies.

The exclusion also keeps the $250,000 threshold honest. Salary disputes rarely reach it, and the chapter was not built to sort them.

An independent contractor’s agreement is a different question, answered by whether the contract is one Section 114.002 describes.

The line to watch is between employment and services. An agreement with an individual professional may be a contract for services rather than employment, and whether it falls inside the chapter is answered by Section 114.002’s subject matter and threshold.

Higher education makes the exclusion visible. University systems are state agencies under Section 114.001, and their faculty and staff agreements are employment contracts this chapter does not touch.

The exclusion costs an employee nothing under this chapter. It routes the dispute to the statutes written for public employment, which carry their own procedures and remedies.