Texas Employment Law Blog : San Antonio Employment Discrimination Lawyer & Attorney : McKinney Law Firm : Sexual Harassment, Wrongful Termination : Texas

We get a lot wrong in our media-transfixed culture, where a wry quip and populist outrage almost always trump any understanding of complicated facts. But rarely do we get someone as wrong as we got Stella Liebeck.

 - Hank Stuever - Washington Post

The Documentary Hot Coffee premiers this week on HBO.  Hot Coffee is a documentary about the tort “reform” industry. The movie, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, included much about the McDonald’s hot coffee case where the late Stella Liebeck was scalded from the brew. I would tell you more about the case, except that you already know the story.....or perhaps you only think you know the story.  

Hot Coffee examines the case and several other cases as well, and does a really good job of exposing how corporate america has spent billions to trick the American people into believing that the court system is evil and that anyone who brings a legal claim is looking for "jackpot justice."  

I encourage you to watch the movie and then do your own thinking on the issue.  It is important that we start seriously considering this issue because our court system and our freedoms are being taken right out from under us and most people don't even know it.

Here is the trailer:

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Today, the Supreme Court blocked a class action sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of women who work there.

As I predicted here, the court ruled that the lawsuit cannot proceed as a class action, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.

The case started in 2000, when a 54-year-old Wal-Mart worker in California named Betty Dukes filed a sex discrimination claim against her employer. Dukes claims that, despite six years of hard work and excellent performance reviews, she was denied the training she needed to advance to a higher, salaried position. Wal-Mart's position is that Dukes clashed with a female Wal-Mart supervisor and was disciplined for admittedly returning late from lunch breaks.

In June 2001, the lawsuit began in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The plaintiffs seek to represent 1.6 million women, including all those who work or have previously worked in a Wal-Mart store since December 26, 1998. In June 2004, the federal district judge, Martin Jenkins, ruled in favor of class certification under FRCP 23(b)(2). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the class certification. Wal-Mart appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

Today's ruling from the Supreme Court means that each member of the class will need to obtain a lawyer to represent her and pursue her claim individually against the retailing behemoth.  Undoubtedly, many or most will be unable to do so and will therefore never get their day in Court.

Links: 

• SCOTUS Opinion
• Previous Article with Links to Briefing and Oral Argument

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Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville and Harlingen was forced to issue checks this month to some of its employees after a two-year investigation by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor concluded the hospital failed to pay for overtime and unused meal breaks.

The DOL ordered VBMC to issue the reimbursements based on provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The reimbursements covered only the period between March 2009 and March 2011 because of a two-year statute of limitations that applies to recovery of back wages under the law.

According to a newspaper report, VBMC officials would not say how many em-ployees were involved or how much money was reimbursed.

Read the entire article here. 

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 In what may be a record-breaking award to a single plaintiff in a sexual harassment case, a federal jury in East St. Louis, Ill., yesterday awarded $95 million to a former employee of Aaron's Inc. Of that amount, $15 million was compensatory and $80 million was punitive damages.

The plaintiff said an Aaron's store manager made suggestive comments, touched her inappropriately and sexually assaulted her. Although she complained to a supervisor and called an Aaron's hotline, she said, the rent-to-own retailer allegedly took no action.

Not surprisingly, the company plans to appeal what it calls a "runaway jury" verdict.  

Read the full story here.

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The U.S. Department of Labor today filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services' Child Protective Services Division in Austin for failing to pay 800 current and former investigators and case workers overtime compensation as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). The suit seeks back wages of more than $1 million, plus liquidated damages.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. After an in-depth investigation into CPS' practices statewide, the department's Wage and Hour Division determined that the employees were working "off the clock" rather than compensated for all hours worked. Additionally, supervisors were instructing employees not to record all of their hours worked. Further, required record keeping was not maintained.

The investigation by the Wage and Hour Division's San Antonio office, covering the three-year period from June 2008 to the present, found that CPS willfully violated the FLSA by failing to pay employees for all hours worked over 40 in a week.  In 2000, the Labor Department filed a similar lawsuit against another Texas state agency.  That suit resulted in the state having to cough up $2 million to workers who had been shorted.

The FLSA requires that covered employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular rates of pay, including commissions, bonuses and incentive pay, for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers must also maintain accurate time and payroll records.

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