Important Recent Case Law for Texas

Thursday, December 26, 2013 | 0

NEW! Pena v. County of Starr, 04-12-00462-CV, (12/18/2013): A Texas worker is getting a second chance to prove his employer violated the Family Medical Leave Act by firing him after he wound up missing several more weeks of work than he had anticipated as being necessary after a workplace injury and an unrelated surgery.

NEW! Melendez v. Houston Independent School District, 14-12-00946-CV, (12/05/2013): A worker could not assert a viable claim for unlawful discrimination under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act based on the fact that she was allegedly forced to resign her position because of her addiction to opiate medication.

NEW! Perez v. Smart Corp., 04-12-00712-CV, (11/27/2013): A Texas appellate court ruled that a painter who fell from a five-story building, breaking his back, was not entitled to damages for his injury. Even if the jury had not been allowed to consider an OSHA report that should have been inadmissible − and was inaccurate − the court said that ample evidence supported a finding that the painter was primarily to blame for his mishap.

NEW! Kings Aire v. Melendez, 08-11-00372-CV, (11/22/2013): A Texas court upheld a jury's verdict finding that an employer had wrongfully terminated an injured employee in violation of the state Anti-Retaliation Law, after he suffered an on-the-job injury. 

NEW! City of Houston v. Rhule, 12-0721, (11/22/2013): The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a former firefighter's $127,500 jury verdict based on his employer's breach of a settlement agreement that had resolved his workers' comp claim from an injury some 16 years prior.

Pilot Travel Centers v. McCray, 05-13-00002-CV, (11/05/2013): A Texas appellate court ruled that the family of a truck stop employee who suffered injuries after just one week on the job were bound by the employee's consent to arbitrate any disputes with his employer, and the employer's belated appeal of the denial of its motion to compel arbitration could be deemed timely because the employer hadn't received notice of the judge's initial ruling.

Long v. Elliott, 11-11-00307-CV, (10/31/2013): The 11th District Court of Appeal upheld a trial judge's distribution of a $4 million settlement for the on-the-job death of a mother of three.

Poplin v. Amerisure Insurance Co., 01-13-00102-CV, (10/31/2013): The widow of an air-conditioning worker who died of a heart attack failed to provide sufficient evidence of a causal connection between his work and his death to withstand summary judgment, the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled. 

Hopper v. Argonaut Insurance Co., 03-12-00734-CV, (10/18/2013): A Texas appellate court ruled that the family of an injured worker who died of a drug overdose could not bring common-law claims for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unconscionability and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing – nor any statutory claims under the Insurance Code and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act – against the comp carrier which had disputed their entitlement to death benefits.