Texas Case Law Update

Thursday, July 2, 2015 | 0

NEW! Seabright Insurance Co. v. Lopez, 14-0272, (06/12/2015): The Texas Supreme Court upheld an award of death benefits to the family of a worker who was killed while traveling to a remote job site.

NEW! Austin v. Kroger Texas, 14-0216, (06/12/2015): The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an employer does not have a duty to protect its employees from unreasonably dangerous conditions on its property that are open and obvious, or known to the employee.

NEW! Salazar v. Crossroads Mechanical, 13-14-00478-CV, (06/11/2015): A Texas appellate court ruled that a worker who was fired after he didn't show up for work two days in a row failed to establish his termination had been done in retaliation for his filing of a workers' compensation claim.

Harvel v. Texas Department of Insurance, 13-14-00095-CV, (05/21/2015): A Texas appellate court rejected an injured police officer's challenge to the denial of his comp claim arising from an accident while en route to work, and it ruled that he was not entitled to a declaratory judgment as to his rights under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act.

Tran v. Broadway Family Dental Care, 14-14-00318-CV, (05/14/2015): A dental office employee's premises liability suit against her employer for her slip-and-fall on a wet floor was not a health care liability claim governed by the Texas Medical Liability Act, the 14th Court of Appeals ruled.

Texas Mutual Insurance Co. v. Vasquez, 04-14-00295-CV, (05/13/2015): A trial judge could not compel a carrier to resume its payment of income benefits to an injured worker – nor sanction it for having acted in bad faith – when the Division of Workers’ Compensation had never found such benefits were owing, a Texas appellate court ruled.

Abutahoun v. Dow Chemical, 13-0175, (05/08/2015): In a case of first impression, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a property owner cannot be held civilly liable for mesothelioma contracted by a pipeline insulation worker from asbestos exposure while he was working as an independent contractor at a chemical plant in Freeport.

Insurance Co. of the State of Pennsylvania v. Hughes, 10-12-00414-CV, (04/16/2015): A Texas appellate court rejected an insurance carrier's challenge to a jury's finding that a worker had given her employer timely notice of her occupational disease and that she was entitled to benefits.

Rodas v. La Madeleine of Texas, 05-14-00054-CV, (04/10/2015): An injured worker who submitted her personal injury claims against her nonsubscriber employer to arbitration should have been allowed to conduct discovery into the potential partiality of the arbitrator once she learned the arbitrator had failed to disclose his involvement with concurrent mediations involving her employer's attorneys.

Hassan v. Rock, 03-13-00536-CV, (04/10/2015): A Texas appellate court ruled that a day laborer's recovery on his negligence claim against the person who had hired him to help clear brush was properly reduced to account for his proportionate responsibility for his injuries.