Teachers are more and more being asked to bear the brunt of the battle with COVID19. As I mentioned in a prior post, Gov. Abbott has ordered that school districts provide in-person instruction to any student desiring it. See my prior post here.
Yet, neither the state or federal governments have offered the districts
During this COVID crisis, many folks are being asked to risk their health and possibly their lives to keep the business running. What about teachers? The state of Texas has mandated that school districts provide in-person teaching for any family desiring it. That means school districts are pressuring teachers to return to in-person teaching, even
What happens when an employer requires everyone to come to work, but the COVID-19 continues to spread? After the initial shut-down, Valero Energy Corp. required all of its 1800 office workers to report to work by June 1, 2020. In the past month, 32 of those employees have tested positive for COVID-19. Several workers have
This past week, the US Supreme Court addressed a nagging question, how far does the ministerial exception to Title VII go? The problem occurs in religious schools. A teacher may teach a wide range of subjects, with only 10% of her time devoted to teaching religious subjects. Is that teacher subject to the minister exception
In Hill v. Kerr County, No. 18-CV-00897 (W.D. Tex.), we see a classic he-said-she-said case. Plaintiff, Beverly Hill got into a fracas with her husband at home. Ms. Hill and her husband, Tommy Hill, both worked for the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department. Ms. Hill submitted a crime report about the altercation with her husband.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does include discrimination against gay persons. I have discussed this issue a few times, that the decision in Oncale v. SundownerOffshore Services, Inc., 523 US 75, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998), was a very parsed
I previously wrote about the federal court’s interpretation of the Texas Election Code here. In that decision, the Western District of Texas found that fear of contracting the coronavirus does indeed constitute a disability. Now, the Texas Supreme Court has weighed in. TheTexas Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion, that fear of the virus
Several years ago, in a federal courthouse here in Texas, a lawyer friend tried a case of white discrimination. A white man was fired under suspicious circumstances. His boss had used the term “gringo,” often. If the man’s race had been Hispanic and the term used was “greaser,” then most persons in Texas would agree
I wrote a post the other day stating that mere fear of contracting the COVID19 virus is not a disability for purposes of the Americans with Disabilities Act. See that post here. But, in a similar lawsuit concerning mail-in balloting, the Western District of Texas has found that anxiety over the coronavirus does indeed
So, a friend called me. She is a lawyer in small town Louisiana. She has been working a few years for a Public Defender’s office in a parish seat. She has been working from home, but now they want her back by next Monday. My friend has been diagnosed with Diabetes Type II. She also