work injury

Restraints Against Commerce—Contractual Penalty for Resignation—Rieves v. Buc-ee’s Ltd., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2017 WL 4557796 (Tex. App—Houston [14th Dist.] 2017)—The employer hired the plaintiff as an hourly-rated, “at will” employee but subject to a contract requiring her to repay all her “fixed monthly bonus,” which was a substantial part of her total compensation, if her […]

Administrative Hearing Officers—“Employee” Status—Texas Workforce Commission v. Harris County Appraisal District, 519 S.W.3d 113 (Tex. 2017)—Members of the Harris County Appraisal Review Board are “employees” under Tex. Lab. Code 207.004, and board members terminated by the Appraisal District are entitled to unemployment compensation. The court rejected the District’s argument that board members are so free

Fair Labor Standards Act—Pre-Shift Wait Time. Bridges v. Empire Scaffold, L.L.C., 875 F.3d 222 (5th Cir. 2017). The Portal-to-Portal Act provides rules for determining whether time engaged in certain workrelated activity counts for purposes of minimum wage and overtime compensation under the FLSA. Among other things, the Act provides that time engaged in activities incidental

Fair Labor Standards —White Collar Exemption—Expert Witness Testimony. Beck v. Access E Forms, LP, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192741 (E.D. Tex. 2017). The district court granted the employer’s motion to exclude the plaintiff’s expert witness testimony. The expert offered legal analysis and conclusions about the applicability of a white collar exemption for the plaintiff, but

Title VII—Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies—What Constitutes a “Charge.” Gonzales v. Pan American Laboratories, LLC, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173899 (N.D. Tex. 2017). The plaintiff’s submission of a signed intake questionnaire and narrative to the EEOC did not satisfy the requirement of a verified charge of discrimination. Amon other things, the employer did not receive notice

Barrett v. American Airlines, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 21336 (5th Cir. 2017) (unpublished). After completing administrative proceedings the plaintiff filed a Chapter 21 discrimination claim in a state court alleging only state law claims. But the state law claim was barred because it was not filed within two years of the filing of the

EEOC v. BDO USA, L.L.P., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 23067 (5th Cir. 2017). The EEOC subpoenaed certain documents and the employer asserted that some of the documents were protected by the attorney-client privilege because they involved communications between a corporate employee and the corporation’s attorney. The district court granted the employer’s motion for a protective

Mir v. L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, L.P., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185426 (N.D. Tex. 2017). There was an issue of fact precluding summary judgement with respect to the plaintiff’s ADA improper inquiry claim, where the plaintiff walked with a limp and used a cane as a result of an impairment, the employer interviewed the plaintiff