work injury

Texas Supreme Court rules that Punitive Damages Available to Truck Driver who refused to drive a company truck that was not in compliance with all Department of Transportation regulations. Texas has only one public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. That policy is known as the Sabine Pilot exception states that an employer cannot […]

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today handed down an opinion that changes the question of who is your employer? At issue was the definition of a joint-employer. Employers over the past several decades have moved to hire employees through staff-leasing companies, temporary employment agencies and sub-contractors. In this case the NLRB stated stated that

On Labor Day President Obama announced that he had issued an executive order that Federal Contractors are now required to provide up to 7 days of paid days of sick time (based on an accrual system for time worked). This order only applies to employers who do Federal Contracts. “Right now, about 40% of private-sector

When suing for discrimination there has long been an issue about what evidence is need to prove discrimination. There has been a notion that many discriminatory statements by supervisors are not evidence of discrimination but are simply what are known as “stray remarks”. This “stray remark” doctrine has allowed Judges to basically eliminate legitimate discrimination

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