Green v. Dallas County Schools, 2017 Tex. LEXIS 445 (60 Tex. Sup. J. 945) (Tex. 2017) Disability Discrimination In this disability-discrimination case an employee (Green) of the school (DCS) suffered from heart failure and as a result of the drugs had urinary incontinence. Green was unable to control his bladder during a school bus run… Read More

Sexual Harassment-Ellerth/Faragher Defense In the recent Fifth Circuit case of Pullen v. Caddo Parish Sch. Bd., 830 F.3d 205 (5th Circuit 2016), the Court discussed the important Ellerth/Faragher defenses for employers created by the U.S. Supreme Court in those cases.  The following is a discussion of the Pullen case and those defenses. In an employee’s sexual harassment… Read More

Colorado County, Texas, et al v. Marc Staff, No. 15-0192 (Tex. 2016) Police Officer Discipline Under Chapter 614, Subchapter B of the Texas Government Code, a covered peace officer cannot be disciplined based on a complaint unless certain procedural requirements are met. At issue in this case was whether Subchapter B’s disciplinary procedures apply to… Read More

Tex. Dep’t of Family & Protective Servs. v. Parra, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 11743 (Tex.App.- El Paso 2016). Worker’s Compensation Retaliation Parra worked for a state agency and was injured on the job in a car wreck. She was subsequently terminated and she sued for worker’s compensation retaliation under sec. 451 Texas Labor Code. The… Read More

Many times, I hear people ask whether they could sue someone or be sued by someone for something.  Usually, the answer is “yes,” you can sue and be sued for many things; however, people are asking the wrong question.  The correct question is whether you can successfully sue or be sued.  In order to have… Read More

The following is a summary of the law review article taken from the essay written by law professor Suja A. Thomas of the University of Illinois School of Law and published in the Virginia Law School Law Review, Vol 93, p. 139, 2007. Summary judgment is cited as a significant reason for the dramatic decline in the… Read More

One type of reasonable accommodation for an employee with a disability, who is unable to come back to work after FMLA leave, is additional unpaid time off. However, there are important limitations on this reasonable accommodation and the request to the employer will not work unless these important steps are taken. First, the requested additional time… Read More

The Department of Labor issued an Administrator’s Interpretation No. 2015-1 on the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s “suffer or permit” standard in the identification of employees who are misclassified as independent contractors. The interpretation is important in that it is authority that has some weight with the Courts, although it is not binding… Read More

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has prepared guidelines to determine whether an employer may be treating an employee differently based on stereotyping certain employees, as to caregiving to people for whom they are responsible based on gender or other protected characteristics.  Although the federal EEO laws do not prohibit discrimination against caregivers per se,… Read More

The first group of posters are required by federal law: – Equal Opportunity is the Law Poster – Family & Medical Leave Act Poster – Federal Minimum Wage Poster – Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act Poster – Employee Polygraph Protection Act Poster – OSHA Poster – Annual Summary of Occupational Illnesses and Injuries –… Read More