Court Activity Heats Up, Post-COVID

Our employment law cases are starting to pick up steam lately, as the courts have reopened and started doing trials again as the fears of COVID have let-up. Interestingly, during the height of COVID, it seemed that every case was settling, but now, companies seem to be aggressively defending wrongful termination cases.

One of our specialties at Coane and Associates is wrongful termination employment law. Starting tomorrow, we will be having an arbitration trial, where we represent an older man who was fired by Travelers Insurance (Travelers Indemnity Company, to be exact), in an employment discrimination case. His claim is that he was fired because he is an older man, and that Travelers Insurance has a pattern of firing older men and replacing them with women. There is a similar arbitration case against Travelers pending in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit filed in court, claims that Nancy Spears of Travelers, “told the staff that this was the year of the woman” in 2019, the same year they fired our client allegedly because he is male. Our client, in his 50’s, was a Claim Technical Coverage and Quality Examiner. He was under the supervision of Susan Garofolo, who he alleges in the lawsuit gave him performance warnings/plans with no feedback, thereby setting him up for failure. The lawsuit also alleges that Garofolo was so angry about our client going to Human Resources that she retaliated and fired him.

We will often warn our clients to think twice about going to HR. We characterize HR as the enemy of the worker, because in reality, HR is normally there to protect the company and not the worker. Trial (arbitration) against Travelers starts tomorrow at 10am in Houston.

In another case we are handling in federal court in Houston, our client sued Woodville Pellets, LLC, a company owned by Graanul Invest Group. Our client, a Mexican-American employee of Woodville Pellets, sued for race and national origin discrimination which got so bad that he was forced to quit his job at the company. The company, after months of litigation, filed a motion for summary judgment, trying to get the case dismissed so they would not have to go before a jury. In an Order released today by U.S. District Judge, David Hittner, he ruled that the company will have to stand trial because there are issues of material fact with regard to race and national origin discrimination. Trial is scheduled for next month, where a jury will decide if the company is guilty of violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Bruce Coane is a lawyer handling wrongful termination cases throughout the United States for over 30 years. He is a 2020 and 2021 Super Lawyer selected by Thomson Reuters company, with offices in Texas and Florida. He may be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com or 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800. The law firm website is http://www.coane.com.

Wrongful termination as a violation of the NLRA for Non-Union Workers

Guest Blog Post by Houston Employment Attorney, Edwin Villa.

In the world of employment law, plaintiffs bringing suit against their employers for discrimination, sexual harassment, hostile work environment, and wrongful termination are commonplace.  The overwhelming majority of these types of cases are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and fall under the jurisdiction of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,EEOC.  However, plaintiffs also have the ability to bring certain types of cases against their employers under the National Labor Relations Act, NLRA, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB.  In many cases, an employer discriminating against an employee can be in violation of both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the NLRA.

The NLRB is an independent federal agency enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which Congress enacted in 1935.  The NLRA was created to protect employees by guaranteeing the right of most private sector employees to organize, to engage in group efforts to improve their wages and working conditions, to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative, to engage in collective bargaining, and to refrain from any of these activities.  However, what is not common knowledge is that the NLRB protects non-union workers in the same manner as it does union workers.  Furthermore, when an employer violates the NLRA by terminating an employee for actions protected and ensured by the NLRA, an employee can then bring suit against the employer by filing a NLRB charge.

Specifically, claims of wrongful termination can violate the NLRA if an employee is terminated for what the NLRB deems protected concerted activity. Examples of this type of protected activity include employees’ right to band together with coworkers to improve their lives at work, acting  with coworkers to address work-related issues such as wages and benefits or other working conditions, circulating a petition asking for better hours, participating in a concerted refusal to work in unsafe conditions, and joining with coworkers to talk directly to their employer, to a government agency, or to the media about problems in the workplace. All of these activities are protected by the NLRA and enforced by the NLRB, and employers cannot discharge, discipline, or threaten employees for, or coercively question employees about, this “protected concerted” activity.

At Coane and Associates, PLLC, we are currently representing multiple clients whose employers allegedly violated both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the NLRA by first discriminating against them in some way, and subsequently retaliating against them for complaints of discrimination by terminating them for engaging in activities that are protected by the NLRA.  For example, we have both an EEOC and NLRB charge pending against a Houston company for maybe first violating Title VII by engaging in national origin discrimination against our client, and then violating the NLRA by terminating our client for discussing a disciplinary write up with a co-worker, an action that is protected under the NLRA.  This action by the employer is a wrongful termination because an employee cannot be terminated for engaging in activities that are protected by the NLRA, even if those activities go against an employer’s policies.  Many employees do not realize that they are protected by the NLRA because they mistakenly believe its for union members only.

 

The author: Edwin Villa is a Houston employment lawyer representing both workers and employers in workplace disputes. He  may be reached at edwin.villa@coane.com or at 713.850.0066. The website is http://www.coane.com.

 

Red Tide and your job near The Beach

With red tide invading all parts of Florida, I have been getting inquiries from individuals who work on or near the beach.

My Miami Beach office, itself, is actually located just two blocks from the beach. The questions I have been fielding deal with the rights of workers when being exposed to dangerous red tide and avoiding wrongful termination. The red tide in Florida has been killing thousands of fish over the past weeks, and the question is how does it affect humans.

Published reports (and my own past experience being exposed in Galveston, Texas), indicate that it causes itchy and red eyes, as well as a feeling of tightness in the chest. Breathing issues have also been reported.

Some callers have told me they work at hotels or restaurants on the beach or near the beach, and they are already getting symptoms from the red tide and don’t want to go to work. In one case, the boss was threatening termination if the food server in Palm Beach County did not show up for work.

Here’s my advice. If you are a worker suffering symptoms of red tide, or afraid of getting symptoms, then get a note from your doctor ORDERING you to be off from work until the beaches reopen or the symptoms or risk subsides. There is no full-fledged way to guarantee saving your job, but if you have a diagnosis and a doctor’s note ORDERING time off from work, an employer will certainly think twice about firing you.

If a person gets fired when off due to a diagnosis and doctor’s orders, they may have a case under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Of course, there are limitations on legal rights and that is why it is important to know the law before asserting any possible legal rights.

The author, employment lawyer Bruce Coane practices wrongful termination and employment law throughout the United States and has offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com or at 713.850.0066 or at 305.538.6800.

Judge Releases Orders in Sex Discrimination Lawsuit against Dignity Health

Our law firm has been representing a former employee of Dignity Health in a sex discrimination case in U.S.District Court in Phoenix, Arizona.

The case has been going on for quite some time with a likely trial date for this year. In this case, our client is a male who worked in a 5-person lab at Dignity Health in Phoenix. Our client alleges, and the evidence has shown, that his boss was sleeping with a female co-worker, and then keeping her as a lab employee as he fabricated reasons for letting other male lab employees go. Our client was terminated, in favor of the hospital keeping our client’s boss’s girlfriend, even though our client alleges that he and the other men in the lab were significantly more qualified than their boss’s girlfriend.

Eventually, the entire lab disbanded, apparently due to lack of funding, with our client’s ex-boss and his girlfriend as the last employees.

The action that the judge took this week was to warn former OBGYN Department chair at Dignity, Dr. James Balducci, that he must contact our law firm because he ignored a subpoena to appear for a deposition. The judge’s Order states that he’d consider holding the doctor  in contempt of court if he fails to promptly contact us to reschedule his deposition.

In addition to Balducci being a no-show for his deposition, Dignity Health was refusing to produce documents relating to the termination of the other lab workers. This week, the judge ORDERED Dignity to provide those records.

Finally, in a common tactic used by company lawyers, Dignity was threatening to send a subpoena to our client’s current employer in Texas, under the guise of needing independent verification of salary, benefits, etc., because somehow the documents we provided and offered to provide just were not sufficient enough. The judge said that Dignity’s lawyer can issue the subpoena, but only if they significantly narrow their request. Either way, it’s certainly the belief of this Houston Employment Lawyer and Miami Employment Lawyer  that this is an intimidation move to scare workers from filing lawsuits, lest their new employer discover that they sued their prior employer.

For further information, I can be reached at 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800, or by email at bruce.coane@gmail.com

Religious Discrimination case filed against Continental Real Estate Companies of Coral Gables

We recently filed an EEOC charge of employment discrimination based on religion and retaliation, against a Coral Gables company, Continental Real Estate Companies.

The religious discrimination and retaliation charges arise out of a warning that our client got when she was first hired at the company, namely, do not discuss your Christian religious beliefs at work, according to the EEOC charge. Our client was told this, she states in the EEOC charge, by Luis Bertot, her Buddhist supervisor.

A few months later when our client reported to Bertot about an offensive picture frame on a co-worker’s desk referencing Satan, Bertot fired her that same day, according to the EEOC charge.

This Miami Employment Lawyer regularly files charges of discrimination with the EEOC on behalf of workers who were allegedly terminated in violation of civil rights laws. For further information, I may be reached at 305.538.6800 or bruce.coane@gmail.com.

Pollo Tropical sued for Sex Discrimination and Retaliation-Company Claims Fired for Serving Expired Chicken

This has been a busy month at our law firm, filing employment discrimination lawsuits. A little over a week ago, I filed a lawsuit on behalf of my client against his former employer, Pollo Tropical. The lawsuit states that my client was discriminated against because of his sex and fired in retaliation for complaining about it.

My client worked as a General Manager of a Pollo Tropical store in Pearland, Texas. While all seemed to be going well with his job performance and while recent store audits scored over 90%, my client states that he noticed that female managers were getting reviews and raises but he was getting neither. When he complained to Angel Cortes his District Manager and then to Chad Brown in the HR department, it is alleged that they made excuses but did not take any steps to equalize the situation.

Instead of treating my client with the same level of fairness by giving him a review and a raise, the company, through Cortes, chose to fire him, the lawsuit alleges.  When my client asked Angel Cortes why he was fired, Cortes says it was due to policy violations, according to the lawsuit.

When my client of this Houston Employment Lawyer and Miami Employment Lawyer confronted Mr. Brown about his termination, Brown says that he was fired “for changing the dates and labels of raw marinated expired chicken and thereby serving expired chicken to customers of Pollo Tropical,” according to the lawsuit. My client was aghast at such an allegation and denies that he did any such thing. If Pollo Tropical was serving expired chicken to its customers, my client denies having any knowledge of it, and says that the company was making up a reason to fire him in retaliation for complaining about discrimination.

The lawsuit is pending in the U.S.District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and the first hearing will be coming up in April of 2018. A jury trial is likely to be scheduled for sometime in 2019.

For further information, I may be reached at 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800, or by email at bruce.coane@gmail.com