Dallas Austin

On July 19, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voluntarily dismissed a pending appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, effectively capitulating enforcement of its 2023 ‘joint-employer rule’. The joint employer rule is used to determine whether an employee has multiple employers. The National Labor Relations Act governs labor relations between employers and employees. It assists in determining and evaluating the employer-employee relationship and depending on the circumstances who governs the actions as an employee. This determination also allows

The building shell for a privately owned airplane hangar in Boise, Idaho was supposed to be completed by January 31, 2024. Instead, the hangar collapsed, killing three and injuring several others. The owner of the general contractor for the project, Big D Builders (BDB), was decapitated in the collapse. Two BDB employees, who were on a manlift hoisted 40 feet in the air installing bolts to secure the building rafters at the time of the collapse, were also killed. On July 9, 2024, the families of the deceased workers filed a wrongful death lawsuit against BDB and three other construction compan

The Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals recently agreed that a claim brought by a former sea captain, Marek Matthews, against his former employers, Tidewater Crewing, Ltd. and Tidewater Inc. (collectively, Tidewater), for alleged exposure to toxic chemicals should be litigated in England, not the US. How did this happen? Matthews, a Florida resident, initially brought suit in Louisiana State Court, but the case was removed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Tidewater then moved to dismiss the case on the basis of inconvenient location, or forum non conveni

In May 2024, the Texas Supreme Court in Alonzo v. John overturned a $12 million jury verdict because Plaintiffs’ counsel made incurable arguments to the jury. The personal injury case stemmed from a 2012 car accident where Defendant, Robert Alonzo, rear ended a couple in his tractor trailer.  One of Plaintiffs in the case was an African American woman.  Alonzo and his employer, New Prime Inc., admitted liability prior to trial.  As a result, the trial was simply to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to Plaintiffs. At the 2020 trial, defense counsel argued that Lewis, an African

When is an owner liable for personal injuries sustained on its property? In Oxy USA WTP LP v. Bringas, the Houston Court of Appeals (First District) held that Oxy USA WTP LT (“Oxy”), the property owner, was not liable to a third-tier subcontractor under a premise liability, negligent activity or negligence per se theory. In Bringas, Bringas, a third-tier independent contractor to Oxy, was asked to swap out two slide-top waste bins with open-top waste bins at a remote, unmanned compressor station, the Barilla Draw, in the Permian Basin. Bringas opted to perform the work in near complete dar

Is a Texas city liable for breach of a verbal contract? The Corpus Christi Court of Appeals in City of Pharr v. Garcia recently answered the question, no. How did this happen and what is the significance to construction contractors in Texas? In Garcia, Pajaro Promotions sued the City of Pharr alleging that the City failed to pay expenses and a 20% promotor’s fee associated with a Toby Keith concert at the City’s convention center. The City argued that Pajaro’s claims were barred due to sovereign immunity. When the trial court denied the City’s plea to the jurisdiction, the City filed a

When is a policy limits demand insufficient to invoke the Stowers doctrine? The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Golden Bear Insurance Co. v. 34th S&S, LLC d/b/a Concrete Cowboy et al. recently held that plaintiffs’ settlement demand did not meet the requirements of the Stowers  doctrine and, therefore, did not expose the insurer to extracontractual damages. Under the nearly 100-year old Stowers doctrine, an insurer may be liable for damages in excess of its policy limits (extracontractual damages) for negligently failing to settle a third-party claim that resul