Employment Law Information Network
All Things Labor and Employment Law
The legal battle continues between large cities and the State of Texas over state attempts to nullify local enactments on employment and other matters that exceed or conflict with state law.
The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act (or HB 2127), known by critics as the Death Star Bill, was scheduled
The Texas legislature meets only for approximately six months every other year. This session, many bills signed into law impact employers. This article summarizes some of these new laws and how they impact employment operations in the State of Texas.
State Preemption of Conflicting Local Laws (AKA the “Death
On June 14, 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill No. 2127, the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act—a measure that his opponents have dubbed the “Death Star” law. The law will go into effect on September 1, 2023.
On June 18, 2023, Texas’ Governor signed House Bill (HB) 4 which enacts the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act. Texas joins California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia in enacting a comprehensive consumer privacy law. Most of the sections of the law are scheduled to take
On June 14, 2023, House Bill (HB) No. 915—a bill the Texas Legislature passed on May 30, 2023—became law. HB 915 adds Chapter 104A, “Reporting Workplace Violence,” to the Texas Labor Code and requires all employers, regardless of size, to post a notice to employees regarding the reporting of instances
On May 27, 2023, Texas’ Governor signed Senate Bill 768 amending Texas’ data breach notification law. The law in question, Section 521.053 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code, sets out the specific requirements any person conducting business in the state who owns or licenses sensitive personal information in a
On May 30, 2023, the Texas Legislature sent legislation to Governor Greg Abbott that will require employers in Texas to post notice to employees about reporting instances of workplace violence or suspicious activity. The legislation is expected to receive final approval in the coming days.
On May 27, 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the CROWN Act (House Bill No. 567), making Texas the twenty-first state to ban racial discrimination based on hair texture or hairstyle in schools, employment, and housing.
In most parts of the country, courts have not considered obesity as a disability unless it is caused by an underlying health condition. In Texas, however, courts have reached a different conclusion, holding that obesity in itself may be a disability in some cases.
The state of Texas that has developed a workplace violence prevention standard for healthcare settings. When signed into law, Senate Bill (SB) 240, aimed at reducing acts of workplace violence directed against healthcare providers, will require each health facility to adopt a written workplace violence prevention policy and plan by
The question of who provides workers’ compensation insurance in employer–staffing company relationships is handled in different ways. Frequently, the staffing company will provide workers’ compensation coverage for all individuals provided to the client company. Issues sometimes arise related to the client company’s and staffing company’s liability under a joint-employer theory
Executive Summary: In a recent case, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the validity of an arbitration clause in a case that had been in litigation for over nine years without the claim ever being heard. See In re Whataburger Restaurants LLC. The lengthy timeline of this case, summarized below, demonstrates the risk of placing binding arbitration agreements within nonbinding documents, which may lead to lengthy court challenges regarding the enforceability of an arbitration clause before any resolution of the underlying dispute.
For many years, an oft-litigated question concerned whether a former employee was owed the commissions on sales made prior to the employee’s discharge from employment. Sometimes employment agreements were clear on the issue, such as by providing unambiguously that commissions would be paid when the employer received payment for a
On January 13, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion staying preliminary injunctions issued in cases filed in Missouri and Louisiana challenging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare providers. The ruling stayed preliminary injunctions applicable to twenty-four states. Twenty-five
Texas House Bill 25, “The Save Women’s Sports Bill,” would bar public school students from participating in interscholastic athletic opportunities designated for the opposite “biological sex.”
The proposed legislation was passed by the Texas State Senate by a 19-12 margin, and an amended version of the measure received support and
