Dallas Austin

What happens to nuclear verdicts on appeal? The El Paso Court of Appeals recently issued a sobering opinion, overruling a $7 million verdict. In Claxton v. Rayner, Claxton’s windshield was hit by a portion of the load that Rayner was transporting on behalf of his employer, Even Better Logistics (EBL).   While Rayner was transporting an oversized load from Dayton to Abilene, he took the wrong exit and ended up on a route that was not part of his TxDOT required route.  The TxDOT route was selected because he was transporting an oversized load. Rayner allegedly did not realize he was on the

What makes a worker an employee versus an independent contractor?  How you classify an individual may change, depending on whether proposed revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by the Department of Labor are accepted and enacted. The proposed revisions were posted on the Federal Register’s website on October 13, 2022 and will be available for public comment until November 28, 2022. The proposal seeks to broaden the factors used to determine whether a worker is an employee, allowing more workers to be classified as employees who would then be entitled to the minimum wage and over

Is a failure to procure the right type of insurance for a construction contract a material breach of contract?  If so, what are the damages arising from that breach and are they actual or consequential?  A recent opinion from the Houston Court of Appeals answers these important questions. In Totalenergies Petrochemicals & Refining USA, Inc., v. Kinder Morgan Petcoke, LP, et al., an employee of Kinder Morgan Petcoke (Kinder Morgan), Gary Counts, died at a refinery owned by Totalenergies Petrochemicals & Refining (Total).  Counts’ estate filed suit against Kinder Morgan, Total and s

When is an arbitration clause illusory and, therefore, unenforceable? The Texas Supreme Court recently decided this issue in an employment context in In re Whataburger Restaurants LLC. In February 2013 Yvonne Cardwell sued her employer, Whataburger Restaurants LLC, claiming she had been injured while working at a Whataburger restaurant in El Paso, Texas. At the time she was hired, Cardwell signed an acknowledgement that she was as at-will employee and agreed to the policies in the 51-page Employee Handbook.  The Handbook included a provision requiring all workplace injury claims to be submitt

In late July, a Dallas jury awarded the Estate of Betty Thomas $7 billion in punitive damages on top of the $375 million in actual damages it awarded one month earlier.  How did this happen and what happens next? In December 2019, Roy James Holden, an employee of Charter Spectrum, a cable company, paid a service call to Thomas’s house.  The next day, “broke”, “hungry” and off-duty, Holden returned to Thomas’s house driving a Spectrum van and dressed in his service uniform.  Holden stabbed Thomas to death using a Spectrum utility knife and wearing company issued gloves, leaving h