Federal Magistrate Judge Orders Chewy to Produce CEO Emails

In a hearing before a Federal Magistrate Judge this week, Chewy, the pet product company, was ordered to turn over certain emails of their CEO, Sumit Singh.

The case involves a lawsuit for employment discrimination against Chewy. Michael Krumpak of Oakland Park, Florida was a former Director at Chewy until he was terminated. His lawsuit claims that he was terminated because of his age and his sexual preference. The lawsuit alleges that he was shunned by management after he attended a party with his husband.

Krumpak’s attorneys at Coane and Associates of Hallandale Beach, argued that emails of the CEO relating to Krumpak’s termination were relevant and the judge agreed. The company had objected to turning over the emails, but was ordered to do so this week by the Federal Magistrate Judge in Fort Lauderdale.

The case is expected to be set for trial later this year.

Bruce Coane is is a lawyer handling wrongful termination cases throughout the United States for over 30 years. He is a 2020 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.

Miscarrying at Work: The Physical Toll of Pregnancy Discrimination

Here is a very interesting article about pregnancy discrimination. I have had cases just like this, but in order to make the case, it is absolutely critical to have a doctor’s letter tying the miscarriage to the treatment received at work. Many doctors may not be willing to say that, and so, even with the statistics described in the article, it is often difficult to make a case without the expert testimony of a physician.

For further information, this employment law attorney can be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com or at 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800

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

 

 

Shintech Faces EEOC Race Discrimination Charge

Our law firm filed a race discrimination charge against Shintech, of Freeport, Texas, on behalf of a Hispanic worker who was recently fired.

photo: wbrz.com

The charge is currently under investigation at the EEOC. It alleges that our client was fired, after 13 years of employment, with no warning and with no valid cause, other than he was non-white.

It is alleged that our client and another non-white worker were both fired by the company, solely because of their race, and over a minor incident. The charge alleges that white workers who violated company rules and engaged in serious infractions were not fired, yet our client and another man were fired for a far less serious matter. The EEOC will conduct their investigation where they will determine if there is sufficient cause to support the charge of race discrimination.

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About the author: Bruce Coane is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law and immigration law, with offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at houstonlaw@aol.com, 713-850-0066 or 305-538-6800.

EEOC Charges Against LNR Property LLC Go to Investigative Unit

After a failed mediation at the EEOC, our client’s charges of race and national origin discrimination against LNR Property LLC, of Miami Beach, are being returned to the EEOC’s investigative unit.

The charges were filed in April 2012, after our client was fired. Our client was at the firm for over 10 years. He is a US citizen, born in Haiti. He says that he was the only black person in his department and one of the few non-Hispanics. He says that most of his Hispanic co-workers spoke in Spanish (which he could not understand) and constantly piled work on him, while they took constant breaks and often sat around with nothing to do.

The EEOC will investigate these charges to determine if LNR has violated the law. If the EEOC determines that LNR has violated the law, they may seek conciliation or the EEOC could file a lawsuit. Alternatively, the EEOC can issue a Right to Sue letter, allowing our client to pursue the matter directly in Federal court.

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About the author: Bruce Coane is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law and immigration law, with offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at houstonlaw@aol.com, 713-850-0066 or 305-538-6800.

Mediation of Employment Terminations at Halliburton and KBR

Our law firm, Coane and Associates, just finished a mediation with Halliburton on behalf of one of our clients. They fired our client for supposedly refusing to shave his goatee. The company has a “no facial-hair” policy, due to the occasional need to wear a chemical protection mask.

Halliburton and KBR both have a system that requires their fired employees to complain about “wrongful discharge” through a mediation and arbitration process. Even claims of discrimination must go through that process and the courts have enforced it.

Our law firm has represented numerous Halliburton and KBR employees in the mediation and arbitration process, no matter where they are located in the U.S. or around the world. Both companies are based in Houston, and our Houston office is located not very far from their headquarters.

One unique aspect of their program is that they pay the first $2500 of our client’s attorney’s fees, thereby making it very easy for clients to retain our services.

With regard to our client with the goatee, his case was not resolved in mediation and therefore will be headed to arbitration. Arbitration is like a trial, except instead of a judge, there is an arbitrator who listens to the witnesses and considers all of the evidence. And, like a judge, an arbitrator can order reinstatement with back pay, as well as other damages allowed by law or equity.

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About the author: Bruce Coane is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law and immigration law, with offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at houstonlaw@aol.com, 713-850-0066 or 305-538-6800.

Kroger Files Motion to Dismiss Race/Sex Harassment Lawsuit

In a case that our law firm has been handling, the employer, Kroger, has filed a motion for summary judgment seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed. They claim that there are insufficient disputed facts to warrant a trial. The case is pending in US District Court in Houston and is set for trial this summer.

In this case, our client filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that a co-worker harassed her because she is black and female, by among other things, calling her a “nigger.” Store managers, Raymond Wei and Mike Childs, have signed statements on behalf of Kroger’s motion.

Co-manager of the Kroger store (in Sugar Land, Tx), Raymond Wei, verifies that our client complained about a co-worker using curse words at her, and he notes that a customer verified our client’s complaint. Store manager Mike Childs has verified that the offending employee was disciplined at least one time, yet, his employer still seeks dismissal of the case.

In their motion, Kroger claims that our client cannot prove sufficient facts to win, so the judge should dismiss the case. This is a common defense tactic in almost every discrimination case. Unfortunately, many times a judge will dismiss the case without the employee-victim ever getting their day in court for a trial. In this case, we plan to respond to the motion with compelling evidence, so hopefully the judge will let our client proceed to trial before a jury.

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About the author: Bruce Coane is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law, and, immigration law, with offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at houstonlaw@aol.com, 713-850-0066 or 305-538-6800.

Employee Rights: Pregnancy Discrimination is Illegal

Employers and companies all have anti-discriminatory policies, unfortunately even if this is so, there are still cases where employees experience and endure this. One form of employment discrimination that does not get much publicity, is pregnancy discrimination where employers are bias over their pregnant workers, forcing them to take a leave, work shorter hours or even discharging them because of their pregnancy. My law firm, Coane and Associates, handles a few of these cases every year.

Here is an interesting article about pregnancy discrimination : Pregnancy Discrimination in America.

photo from: Babble.com
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About the author: Bruce Coane is an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law, and, immigration law, with offices in Florida and Texas. He may be reached at houstonlaw@aol.com, 713-850-0066 or 305-538-6800.

Race discrimination case against Carnival Cruise Lines

Tomorrow, I am taking a deposition in my client’s case against Carnival Cruise Lines. My client was a lead singer aboard Carnival ships and the company refused to renew his contract at the end of 2009, and again in 2010. After he filed a complaint with the EEOC, they continued to refuse to take him back, which he believes is in retaliation for filing with the EEOC. Tomorrow’s deposition is of one of his supervisors, and a current employee of Carnival.

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Bruce Coane is a leading lawyer with 30 years of experience in the field of immigration law and employment law. He may be reached via email at houstonlaw@aol.com or his website at Coane and Associates.

Has your Civil Rights been violated in the workplace?

Many employees come to my office to consult with me about sexual harassment or discrimination based upon race, pregnancy, gender or age. On some occasions, the employee may still be employed by the employer.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.

Most employers with at least 15 employees are covered by EEOC laws (20 employees in age discrimination cases). Most labor unions and employment agencies are also covered. The laws apply to all types of work situations, including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and benefits.

An EEOC Charge can either be filed with the assistance and representation of counsel or by the employee on their own. If you do it on your own, the EEOC will give you the forms and guidance on how to prepare the Charge of Discrimination. Once a complaint is made to HR or the EEOC, the employer is not legally allowed to retaliate or discriminate against you for making these complaints. However, that does not always mean the employer will follow the rules so you should keep careful notes and documentation of all complaints made, to whom you made them, and any actions taken against you as a result of these complaints.

The EEOC has a link on its website that you can use to do an online assessment of whether or not you should bring a charge with the EEOC. The link is at https://egov.eeoc.gov/eas/.

It is important to know however that if you choose to file an EEOC Charge, you must do so within 180 days or 300 days of the claimed discrimination or harassment, so don’t wait too long to take this action. You get 300 days if your state has an agency similar to the EEOC such as in Florida, there is the Florida Commission on Human Relations (“FCHR”). You can fill out a charge in person at one of the EEOC offices or do it by mail.

Once the EEOC Charge is filed, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency, has a staff of investigators who investigate your complaints. The employer is supposed to receive a copy of your Charge within ten days. They allow the employer an opportunity to file a formal response and generally will then ask for a reply from the employee. Sometimes, they will seek to interview the employee in person or over the telephone to get more information for their investigation. Sometimes the investigators will seek documents from the employer. Sometimes the EEOC will offer the parties to mediate the claims prior to further investigations. Keep in mind that if you choose to file an EEOC charge on your own, without an attorney, you will not have the support and guidance of an attorney to help you through this process.

Once the EEOC completes its investigation, they will issue either a “cause determination” finding that they believed discrimination took place or will issues a “Notice of Suit Rights” which states that although they don’t believe discrimination took place, you can file a legal action against the employer if you choose to do so. If the EEOC issues a “cause” determination, they can choose to file a lawsuit on your behalf, but are not required to do so.

Upon receipt of your Notice from the EEOC, if you are going to file a lawsuit, you must do so quickly since any Federal claims under the ADA, Title VII, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, etc must be filed within 90 days. In Florida and other states, there are also state statutes which provide you a longer time to file suit.

In order to obtain the best results, it is often necessary to retain the services of an experienced employment law attorney as early in the case as possible. Call Coane & Associates at 713.850.0066 to schedule your consultation with our experienced attorneys who are compassionate about your rights.