Texas’ anti-discrimination law allows employees to pursue defamation and fraud common-law tort claims against coworkers, even if those claims arise from the same workplace bias allegations against their employer, the state’s high court ruled.
Common-law cause of action exists for employees in Texas when individual tort claims are related to the same workplace discrimination allegations against the employer in the underlying case, the justices held Friday in a lawsuit from Southern Methodist University law professor Cheryl Butler who accused SMU and its employees of discriminating and retaliating against her by denying her tenure application.
Butler’s suit claimed violations of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act and federal workplace discrimination laws, and asserted various tort claims against SMU and several officials, including its then-provost, the law school dean, vice president of executive affairs, and the tenure committee chair.
The law “subjects only employers to statutory liability for covered discriminatory and retaliatory conduct and does not purport, either expressly or by implication, to immunize individuals from liability for their own tortious conduct merely because that conduct could also give rise to a” claim of workplace bias, harassment or retaliation “against a different defendant,” Justice Debra H. Lehrmann wrote for the...
Some of the world’s largest food manufacturers, including Nestlé and Unilever, are flooding the market with expensive dietary supplements that promise solutions to stress, obesity, and menopausal ...