NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
Circumstantial evidence is enough to support a claim for retaliatory discharge. The claimant reported a work injury and was terminated after presenting a doctor’s note keeping him off work. He then brought suit against his employer alleging that he was terminated in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim. A claim for retaliatory discharge requires that filing a workers’ compensation claim isa reason, but not necessarily the only reason, that the employee was terminated. The burden is on the employee to show the causal connection, the burden then shifts to the employer to show that there was a legitimate reason for the termination, and if it does so the burden then shifts back to the employee to show that the reason was a mere pretext. The Austin Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a summary judgment in favor of the employer because the employer’s stated reason, that the employee was unable to perform his job, was not a nondiscriminatory reason as a matter of law where there was not a uniformly applied termination policy.Phillips v. SACHEM, Inc., 2014 WL 7464035 (Tex. App.–Austin 2014, no pet.).