On May 27, 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the CROWN Act (House Bill No. 567), making Texas the twenty-first state to ban racial discrimination based on hair texture or hairstyle in schools, employment, and housing.
In most parts of the country, courts have not considered obesity as a disability unless it is caused by an underlying health condition. In Texas, however, courts have reached a different conclusion, holding that obesity in itself may be a disability in some cases.
The state of Texas that has developed a workplace violence prevention standard for healthcare settings. When signed into law, Senate Bill (SB) 240, aimed at reducing acts of workplace violence directed against healthcare providers, will require each health facility to adopt a written workplace violence prevention policy and plan by September 1, 2024.
“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” has famously been attributed to Mark Twain, who himself attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Data, however, never lies.
In December 2022, Ogletree Deakins launched its OSHA Tracker based on analysis of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) publicly available inspection and citation data, which dates back to the 1970s. Now, in addition to featuring individual state data and OSHA regional information, the OSHA Tracker has been enhanced with city information.
Ogletree Deakins’ recently released OSHA Tracker tool allows employers to search and filter Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data to identify emerging issues and OSHA enforcement trends. This interactive tool compiles comprehensive OSHA inspection, citation, and penalty data and allows employers to create custom searches and filter by OSHA region, state, industry, or date.
Analysis of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) publicly available inspection and citation data, which dates back to the 1970s, can help employers forecast and spot enforcement trends and changes, identify new and emerging issues, and correlate information to make unique connections that may not be readily apparent. To assist employers, Ogletree Deakins has developed the OSHA Tracker, a purpose-built resource designed to provide clients and consumers with easy-to-use search tools and filters to convert OSHA data into more digestible and useful information.
Issues related to whether individuals are independent contractors or employees receive significant attention by employers and governmental entities because of the critical impact of misclassification. The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) recently published proposed rule restricting when individuals can be considered independent contractors is an example of this scrutiny.
Employers are facing increasing—and conflicting—pressures over health plan coverage of puberty-blocking medications used to treat some minors for gender dysphoria.
The question of who provides workers’ compensation insurance in employer–staffing company relationships is handled in different ways. Frequently, the staffing company will provide workers’ compensation coverage for all individuals provided to the client company. Issues sometimes arise related to the client company’s and staffing company’s liability under a joint-employer theory for adverse employment actions involving workers provided by the staffing company to the employer. A Texas appellate court recently examined the scope of joint-employer liability in the workers’ compensation retaliation context.
On July 15, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that a female employee who crawled into a male coworker’s bed while “sleepwalking” and was subsequently discharged failed to establish disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA).
In the first ruling from a federal appellate court examining COVID-19–related layoffs and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Easom v. US Well Services, Inc., No. 21-20202 (June 15, 2022), that a mass layoff resulting in part from the economic impact of COVID-19 did not qualify for the “natural disaster” exemption to the WARN Act’s sixty-day notice requirement for mass layoffs. The court also held that for an employer to rely on the exemption, the mass layoff (or plant closing) must be the “direct result” of the natural disaster. This is an important ruling for employers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
On March 24, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) dismissal for failure to state a claim on a pro se plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, holding that the plaintiff’s specific allegation—that his supervisor, in the presence of other employees, called him a derogatory racial epithet—was sufficient to give rise to a viable claim.
High temperatures in the Southwestern United States have and continue to break records. In Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, the heat index could reach triple digits and in some cases exceed 110°F. These elevated temperatures pose a serious risk to employees exposed to heat due to the nature of their jobs. As a result, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is aggressively enforcing its national and regional programs aimed at preventing heat-related illnesses and fatalities.
On May 13, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of an employer, finding that a fired employee had failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to pretext. In Owens v. Circassia Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the court affirmed summary judgment despite its recognition that the former employee had presented “substantial evidence” that could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the employer’s stated reason for termination—her poor job performance—was false.
For many years, an oft-litigated question concerned whether a former employee was owed the commissions on sales made prior to the employee’s discharge from employment. Sometimes employment agreements were clear on the issue, such as by providing unambiguously that commissions would be paid when the employer received payment for a completed sale. Frequently, however, employment agreements were less than clear as to when commissions would be paid to former employees. Over the years, courts ruled in different ways and applied different standards when determining whether a former employee was entitled to commissions on sales made prior to an employment termination. On May 20, 2022, in Perthuis v. Baylor Miraca Genetics Laboratories, LLC, the Supreme Court of Texas clarified the standard to be applied in those situations.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling concerning the discharge of Michael Harris from his position with the City of Schertz, Texas, as the city marshal. In doing so, the Fifth Circuit gave a bit more clarity on the situations in which comments made by an employer or agent of an employer amount to discriminatory pretext.
On January 13, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion staying preliminary injunctions issued in cases filed in Missouri and Louisiana challenging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare providers. The ruling stayed preliminary injunctions applicable to twenty-four states. Twenty-five states were already subject to enforcement under the CMS rule. This left Texas standing alone and in limbo.
In a November 30, 2021, order, a federal judge sitting in Louisiana entered a nationwide preliminary injunction against the Biden administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) interim final rule entitled “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination.” The effect of the order is that CMS must immediately “cease all implementation or enforcement of the [CMS] Rule” in the remaining 40 states not covered by an earlier November 29, 2021, order from a federal judge sitting in Missouri that prevented implementation and enforcement of the CMS rule in only 10 states.
On November 12, 2021, a three-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a sweeping order continuing its initial November 6, 2021, stay of the emergency temporary standard (ETS) that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued on November 4, 2021.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas recently denied an employer’s motion for summary judgment when its alleged shifting reasons for terminating the plaintiff’s employment contract raised genuine issues of material fact as to whether those reasons were a pretext for discrimination and/or retaliation.
On October 11, 2021, Governor Greg Abbott issued Executive Order (EO) No. GA-40, prohibiting any entity in Texas from requiring any individual, including an employee, to receive a COVID-19 vaccination if that individual objects to the vaccination “for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19.”
The issue of the proper application of the highly compensated employee exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), as it applies to employees paid on a “day-rate” basis in the oil and gas industry, has been a hotly debated issue in recent years, especially in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Navigating the unemployment benefit administrative process under the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act can be difficult for employers. The act limits the type of conduct that may disqualify a claimant from receiving benefits, but it does provide for disqualification “if the individual was discharged for misconduct connected with the individual’s last work.” Employers’ notions of “misconduct” do not necessarily match the act’s definition of “misconduct.” A recent Texas appellate court decision, Texas Workforce Commission v. Dental Health for Arlington, Inc., provides guidance for employers regarding the factors required to establish misconduct that would disqualify a former employee from receiving unemployment benefits.
On August 11, 2021, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins signed an emergency executive order, taking effect at 11:59 p.m. that same day, requiring “all child care centers and Pre-K through 12 Public Schools operating in Dallas County,” as well as “all commercial entities in Dallas County providing goods or services directly to the public,” to “develop and implement a health and safety policy” that requires “universal indoor masking” regardless of vaccination status.
Texas courts generally look to federal courts’ interpretation of federal anti-discrimination laws to assist in interpreting the anti-discrimination provisions of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA). However, the provisions of the TCHRA do not always exactly mirror the language of parallel federal anti-discrimination laws. The Texas Supreme Court recently examined such differences in interpreting the scope of the anti-retaliation provisions of the TCHRA.
Arbitration agreements are intended to expedite the legal process while minimizing fees and costs. In reality, former employees and their counsel often resist submitting their employment claims to arbitration, resulting in protracted and expensive litigation before trial and appellate courts on the issue of whether there is an enforceable arbitration agreement. This year, the Supreme Court of Texas issued two key decisions that may provide employers with stronger legal grounds for enforcing their arbitration agreements.
Effective September 1, 2021, any employer that employs “one or more employees” or that “acts directly in the interests of an employer in relation to an employee” will be considered an employer under Texas law and subject to a heightened level of scrutiny for sexual harassment claims under Texas law. The new law is a significant change from the current standard, which shields employers with fewer than 15 employees from liability regarding sexual harassment claims.
On June 7, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law legislation that prohibits government entities from requiring individuals to provide evidence of COVID-19 vaccination status and strongly discourages private businesses in Texas from requiring what has become known as “COVID-19 vaccine passports” from customers.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign the Firearm Carry Act of 2021 (House Bill 1927) into law. Texas will join several other states that have enacted or plan to enact similar permitless, “constitutional carry” statutes in support of the individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
