The Dallas Hospitality Employment Lawyer Blog

In its Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship under the Americans with Disabilities Act issued in 2002, which hasn't yet been withdrawn or updated as a result of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendment Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) opines that an employer is generally not required to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee who violates a conduct rule where the consequence of the violation is the termination of employment. But what happens when an employer denies an employee the reasonable accommodation of a policy modification and then uses that same, underlying policy as a basis to terminate the employee's employment? Yesterday, the Sixth Circuit answered that question by affirming a jury verdict in favor of an employee who was terminated for violating Dollar General's "anti-grazing" policy, a policy to which the employee sought (but was refused) a modification due to her dia...

Starting this coming Tuesday, August 31, 2018, Yelp will post restaurant health inspection scores directly on a restaurant's Yelp page. Yelp initially launched this program in San Francisco in 2013 and to expand it nationwide, hired a third-party company to trawl  through government websites to find the health inspection reports to post. Texas is among the states with a health inspection score roll-out date in August.  Restaurateurs should review the scores posted by Yelp to ensure they are accurate. 

Restaurant health inspection grades have been available to the public for some time, but in Dallas and Fort Worth, they were difficult to locate in the public health data. In case you missed it, the Dallas Morning News (DMN) has just rolled out a new website located at restaurantinspections.dallasnews.com that includes health inspection grades for restaurants in Dallas, Carrollton, Plano, Richardson, and Fort Worth.  The site includes three main ways to search: (1) by restaurant name; (2) by issue (such as mold or rodents); and (3) by letter grade (A, B, C, D or F).   The DMN reports it hopes to add new cities to the database and has provided an e-mail address for readers to submit suggestions.   Counsel for restaurants should advise their clients of the existence of this site to avoid negative publicity and ensure that inspection grades are accurately reflected.  

The Fifth Circuit has not yet ruled on the issue of whether transgender status is a protected category under Title VII, but earlier this month, a federal district judge in the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, assumed that it was.   In Wittmer v. Phillips 66 Company , No. H-17-2188 (S.D. Tex. April 4, 2018), the plaintiff sued Phillips 66 claiming it rescinded her job offer based on her identity as a transgender woman and her failure to conform to female sex stereotypes.    Noting the prohibition against gender stereotyping in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins , 490 U.S. 228, 250-51 (1989) and the Fifth Circuit's absence of guidance on the issue, as well as conflicting opinions from other courts, the Court found recent decisions from the Sixth, Second, and Seventh Circuits "persuasive" and applied them to "assume" a protected status.   Despite the assumption, the Court nevertheless granted summary judgment for the employer because the plaintif...

The question of whether an employee on FMLA leave is entitled to apply for and receive unemployment benefits from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is the issue that pits the TWC against Wichita County, Texas in a case currently pending before the Texas Supreme Court.   In TWC v. Wichita County, Texas , No. 17-0130, the TWC contends that an employee on FMLA leave was entitled to unemployment benefits because the employee left work, and was therefore unemployed, due to a medically verifiable illness. Wichita County, on the other hand, contends that the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act (TUCA) does not apply to employed individuals on FMLA whose employment is protected by federal law.   Key to the Court's ruling will be a clarification of what it means to be "unemployed" under the TUCA.  Section 207.045 of the TUCA permits a person who has voluntarily left her job due to a medically verifiable illness to receive benefits.  Does an...