A former Bastrop County Animal Shelter employee will have a chance to argue her wrongful termination in court after she said she was fired for "blowing the whistle" on animal abuses at the county facility in 2012.

The 3rd Court of Appeals recently decided that Rebekha Montie, who formerly managed the county shelter, has the right to argue violations of the Texas Whistleblower Act, which protects employees from being fired for reporting illegal activity. Her case will now be heard in district court.

Montie first filed suit against Bastrop County in 2013. According to her original petition, she said she was fired from her job two months after complaining to Bastrop County commissioners about animal abuses at the shelter by its then-director Diane Mollaghan.

Montie claimed that Mollaghan failed to sign off on numerous euthanasia recommendations in a timely fashion, causing "unreasonable suffering" in several terminally ill animals, the petition said. Montie also alleged that Mollaghan’s mismanagement of the shelter created "poor habitat conditions for the animals" and "a marked increase in (their) morbidity rate."

She said she was fired as retribution for complaining about the abuses and asked for up to $1 million in monetary relief.

Bastrop County argued at the time that Montie did not have standing in the case since she failed to report the abuse to the "appropriate law enforcement authority," a stipulation of the Texas Whistleblower Act. In its answer to the original petition, the county argued Montie reported the abuse to commissioners and to Mollaghan herself but never to the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office or any other law enforcement agency.

The appeals court, however, disagreed with the county.

On Oct. 19, it sided with Montie, who said she believed she reported the abuse to the proper law enforcement authority by telling Mollaghan herself, who was the head of Bastrop County Animal Control, the division that investigates animal abuse.

The case will now be sent back to district court.

On Thursday, County Judge Paul Pape, who chairs the commissioners court, declined to speak about the case.

Mollaghan was arrested for driving while intoxicated in August 2013 — her second such charge in six years, according to Bastrop and Travis County jail records. Shortly after, she resigned from her position as shelter director.

Since Montie was fired, the county has continued to hear complaints of abuses at the shelter.

In April, another former manager, Vivian Hemme, and several ex-volunteers complained to commissioners about poor cleaning practices, disorderly staff and a lack of oversight at the county facility. Hemme, who had been asked to resigned from her position, alleged mismanagement on the part of then-director Erica Thompson, who resigned as director two months later.

The shelter’s program coordinator, Ashley Hermans, has filled in as interim director and has been working to fill several vacant positions at the facility.