Around St. Patrick’s Day, conversations about drinking are everywhere. But when alcohol use becomes a medical issue, the legal questions are anything but lighthearted. Many Texas employees quietly ask the same thing: Can I lose my job for being an alcoholic?
The answer is more nuanced than most people realize – and it depends on what actually happened at work.
Is Alcoholism a Disability Under the ADA?
Dallas Employment Trial Lawyer Cassidy Monska
Across the country, nurses are taking action in ways the public has not seen in years. News headlines often describe these strikes as pay disputes, but nurses consistently tell a different story. The real issue is safety. Unsafe staffing. Unsafe patient loads. Unsafe working conditions that place both patients and employees at risk. Nurses are speaking out because caring has become unsafe, and they are being pushed past the point where quiet endurance is possible.
For years, nurses were told that chronic staffing shortages were temporary. They were asked to hold on until the next hiring wave or the next budget cycle. Instead, the environment inside many hospitals has grown even more strained. Nurses are regularly responsible for more patients than they can safely manage. Overtime becomes the rule rather than the exception. Breaks disappear. New nurses leave the profession within months, and experienced nurses shoulder more responsibilities with fewer resources. Many report working entire shifts without time to chart properly, hydrate, or use the restroom. This is not sustainable for anyone, and it certainly is not safe.
Summary: This blog briefly goes over the “adverse action” standard in Texas and some recent changes in the law in that area. It then focuses on the question of whether you should wait for an adverse action to happen before talking to a lawyer about your rights.
Roughly speaking, employment law in Texas is centered around what are called “adverse actions”: you can seek legal redress from your employer if you can identify some harm it caused to the terms or conditions of your employment. Of course, that is separate from the critical question of why the employer did what it did, and whether that why was illegal.
I previously wrote a blog on how Texas employees no longer need to prove they suffered an “ultimate employment action” or financial harm to establish they were discriminated against. And retaliation claims are subject to an even lower bar for adverse actions, requiring only the employee show the employer took a “materially adverse” action that would (or could) dissuade a reasonable person from engaging in legally protected activity.
This blog explains the role Human Resources actually plays in the workplace, why HR is not an employee advocate, and why Texas employees should still report workplace issues while protecting themselves through documentation and realistic expectations.
Blog Text:
Many employees believe Human Resources exists to help them, which is a totally understandable assumption. HR is the go-to for employees with just about any workplace question and is often presented as a neutral resource. But when a serious workplace issue arises, such as discrimination, harassment, or retaliation, employees often discover that HR’s role is not what they expected.
Dallas Employment Trial Lawyer Cassidy Monska
“I Didn’t Do That!” – The Reality of Defamation Cases in Texas
When someone spreads false information about you, whether to potential employers, customers, or colleagues, it feels deeply personal and damaging. The instinctive reaction is often: “That’s defamation! I’ll sue!” But in Texas, defamation cases are far more complex than most people realize. What seems like a straightforward claim often turns into a legal uphill battle.
Dallas Employment Trial Lawyer Riley Carter
Employees are often asked to provide personal information as part of the hiring process or during their employment. While employers do have the right to collect certain information, that right is not unlimited. Federal and state laws strictly regulate what employers may request, when they may request it, and how that information may be used.
Understanding these boundaries is critical for employees who want to protect their rights.
Dallas Senior Trial Attorney Deontae Wherry
Every year, we gather to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But to truly honor him, we cannot settle for speeches and ceremonies. Dr. King never asked us to be comfortable, he asked us to be courageous. He asked us to look honestly at the world around us and refuse to accept injustice as normal. Here, in Texas, that call still echoes loudly.
Dr. King understood something profound: the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workplace justice are the same fight. He knew that a person cannot live free if they cannot work free from discrimination, free from retaliation, free from exploitation, free from the systems that suffocate opportunities. Dr. King often reminded us that laws limiting the rights of Black Americans also limited their ability to participate fully in the economy. Economic inequality and racial inequality, he insisted, were two sides of the same broken coin.
Despite the FTC ruling that non-competes are unenforceable, this ruling has been blocked by a judge in the Northern District of Texas and is tied up in continued litigation. Therefore, in Texas, noncompete agreements are enforceable. Read my other blog here to learn more about what makes a non-compete enforceable in Texas. Texas employers often move quickly when accusing a former worker of violating a noncompete, sometimes seeking emergency court orders that threaten your new job, your clients, and your livelihood. Understanding the process can help you protect your rights and respond strategically. Here’s what typically happens when you, the employee, are on the receiving end of a noncompete dispute in Texas.
1. The Accusation or Cease-and-Desist Letter
Most noncompete disputes (and lawsuits in general) begin with a cease-and-desist letter. This letter usually claims you’re working for a competitor, soliciting customers, or using company information in violation of your agreement. It may demand that you:
For many Dallas employees, December feels like the worst time to deal with a work problem. Everyone is juggling holiday travel, office potlucks, and year-end deadlines, and it’s extremely tempting to tell yourself, “I’ll deal with that in January.” We hear this all the time. Employees want to rock around the Christmas tree, not rock the boat, and employers often count on that hesitation. Unfortunately, your workplace rights don’t take a holiday break, no matter how much we wish the law would let us hit “pause” until after New Year’s.
The truth is that waiting can have real consequences. Employment laws run on strict timelines, evidence can disappear quickly, and employers make major decisions in December that can shape your case long before the new year ever arrives. As cozy as it sounds to postpone everything until January, that delay can close doors you didn’t even know were closing.
One of the most important reasons not to put off seeking advice is the legal deadlines that apply to discrimination and retaliation claims. In Texas, employees generally have 300 days from the date of an adverse action to file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC explains these filing rules clearly on their website. Meanwhile, state-level claims filed through the Texas Workforce Commission often have even shorter timelines. Here’s the part many employees don’t realize: the clock keeps ticking regardless of holidays, holiday parties, or your supervisor being “OOO until January 3.” If your boss retaliated against you in March or April, December might be your last chance to preserve your rights.
Summary: This blog briefly discusses what it means to be an independent contractor or employee. In particular, it goes over some special rights afforded to sales representatives who are contractors in Texas.
In employment law, a lot can turn on whether you are considered an employee or an independent contractor. Legally, whether someone is an employee and not an independent contractor largely depends on the level of “control” the employer has over the person’s day-to-day work. The more freedom someone has to set their own schedule, control their own work quality, use their own supplies, and choose where or with whom they want to work, the more likely they are to be an independent contractor and not an employee. On the other hand, whether your employer labels you a contractor or issues a Form 1099 to you at the end of the year are relatively unimportant. Although on paper being a contractor can sound great, unfortunately some employers may deliberately misclassify employees as contractors.
That is because, in Texas, those considered independent contractors are typically afforded fewer rights than employees. They generally do not get any of the benefits employees do. And an independent contractor is generally exempt from most civil rights protections or similar laws that protect employees. Really, the only protections that a contractor can typically rely on are those in their written contract itself (if they have one at all).
Dallas Employment Lawyer Blog