texas law

What does “at-will” employment mean in Texas? “At-will” employment means that your employer can fire you with or without cause. In other words your employer can fire you for no reason at all or even a bad reason as long as it is not an illegal reason. There are many illegal reason (race, color, religion, […]

In a recent Federal District Court case a Federal Judge in the Western District ruled that the employee was not required to report the discrimination when the discrimination was open and pervasive. This case involved same-sex harassment which normally always requires that the employer be put on notice of the discrimination before they can be

An employer can win a claim if they can show they would have fired the employee even if the employee had been discriminated against. This is know as the “Same Decision Defense” In the case of River Oaks L-M. Inc. v. Vinton-Duarte, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2015 WL 3618950 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2015) the employer

The law of sexual harassment has always been that the sexual harassment must be severe or pervasive before it will lead to liability of the employer. In a recent Texas case the court held that a supervisor’s attempt to include an employee in a group viewing an obscene photograph was not sufficiently severe or pervasive

Nurses and other Health care workers are protected if they report violations of the law. Section 161.135 of the Texas Health and Safety Code States that it is illegal to retaliate against a non-employee who reports a violation of law. Recently a nurse-anesthetist was working at a hospital and reported that a doctor failed to

In the case of Wright v. Hernandez, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2015 WL 4389582 (Tex. App.—El Paso 201) the El Paso, Court of Appeals held that an employee can be held to an arbitration agreement even if the employer did not sign the agreement. Arbitration is a process where the employee is forced to bring any

The Texas Supreme Court recently answered this question in the case of Austin v Kroger. Under Texas law an employer does not have to carry Texas Workers’ Compensation to protect its employees from injuries. In fact man of the largest employers in Texas do not carry such coverage but have their own injury benefit plans.

Workers’ Compensation Laws in Texas are really unfair to injured workers. If you have been injured and your employer does carry workers’ compensation then you know how insurance companies deny benefits and do everything they can to deny benefits to injured workers. This recent story from the Texas Tribune highlights the amazing degree of unfairness

Texas Workforce Commission says that reported work related injuries are down 31% in part because workers’ fear reporting injuries. In a recent report to the Texas legislature the Workers’ Compensation Commission made an amazing statement that work related injuries are down 31% over the last decade. While the Commission tried to take credit for safer

How does disability in employment work? I find there is a lot of misunderstanding in what discrimination in disability means and how it applies to El Paso, Texas and Texas employees. In this article I will cover the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its amendments (ADAA) and the general rules of discrimination in employment.