Dallas Austin

In late July, a Dallas jury awarded the Estate of Betty Thomas $7 billion in punitive damages on top of the $375 million in actual damages it awarded one month earlier.  How did this happen and what happens next? In December 2019, Roy James Holden, an employee of Charter Spectrum, a cable company, paid a service call to Thomas’s house.  The next day, “broke”, “hungry” and off-duty, Holden returned to Thomas’s house driving a Spectrum van and dressed in his service uniform.  Holden stabbed Thomas to death using a Spectrum utility knife and wearing company issued gloves, leaving h

COVID-19 silently infects and can be lethal. Monkeypox infects but leaves a distinct mark, a pock.  While both create challenges for employers, the visible emergence of monkeypox requires revisiting lessons from the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent claims of employment discrimination. Monkeypox virus presents an emerging problem for employers. Cases are increasing in Texas and nationwide. Several counties and cities in Texas have or are considering declaring monkeypox a public health emergency. The monkeypox virus is a relative of smallpox and causes systemic symptoms, incl

Is a wrongful death claim brought by the estate of an erotic dancer subject to binding arbitration? The Texas Supreme Court recently weighed in on this issue. In Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. v. Sotero, an erotic dancer, Stephanie Sotero Hernandez, was killed in a tragic crash while riding in a car driven by a coworker after they left work at Baby Dolls Topless Saloon. Hernandez’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baby Dolls, alleging that Baby Dolls continued to serve Hernandez’s coworker alcohol knowing she was intoxicated. In response to the lawsuit, Baby Dolls moved to c

Texas law favors settling disputes by arbitration, as it is intended to provide a less expensive, quicker means of resolving a dispute than litigation. However, in some cases, forcing a party to participate in arbitration can have the opposite effect. For example, in Houston ANUSA, LLC v. Shattenkirk, the Houston (14th) Court of Appeals recently ruled that an arbitration provision in an employment contract was “substantively unconscionable” because the cost of arbitration would be so excessive as to prevent the party from asserting his claims. In Shattenkirk, an employee filed suit against

Must an employer pay commissions to an at-will employee earned after the employee’s date of termination?  The Texas Supreme Court recently weighed in on this issue, reminding employers that written expectations and terms of employees, their positions, their salaries and/or earnings is crucial. In Perthuis v Baylor Miraca Genetics Laboratories, the Court concluded the state’s “procuring-cause doctrine” applies to commission (or sales) payments for an employee no longer employed with employer at the time the commission is collected. In 1916, the procuring-cause doctrine was established