This case involves an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by Melissa Buchanan-Rushing, a police officer for the City of Royse City, Texas, who alleged she was placed on involuntary medical leave, denied return to full duty as a School Resource Officer, had her FMLA leave request denied, and was ultimately terminated due to her pregnancy. The plaintiff asserted claims under Title VII and the Texas Labor Code for sex/pregnancy discrimination and retaliation, as well as under the FMLA, while voluntarily dismissing her ADA and equal protection claims. The court granted the city's motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part, overruling objections and granting leave for a sur-reply. Applying the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework to the circumstantial evidence, the court found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of discrimination sufficient to survive summary judgment on at least some claims by showing she was otherwise discharged because of her pregnancy, even without strong evidence of similarly situated comparators. The decision turned on the substantive legal standards for summary judgment under Rule 56 and the requirements for proving intentional discrimination.
The case involved a homeowner's insurance dispute where plaintiff Chris Tolar sued Allstate Texas Lloyd's for breach of contract and unfair claim settlement practices under the Texas Insurance Code, claiming the insurer improperly depreciated general contractor overhead and profit along with sales tax when calculating actual cash value payments for storm damage to his property. The court denied Tolar's motion for partial summary judgment and granted Allstate's motion for summary judgment on both claims while denying its alternative request to stay proceedings under the primary jurisdiction doctrine. The decision rested on the finding that the policy language was unambiguous in allowing depreciation of those items in determining actual cash value, with no genuine issue of material fact on the damages element of the claims. Texas contract interpretation rules applied in this diversity case, and the court saw no need for agency input from the Texas Department of Insurance on this straightforward issue.
In this case, plaintiff Jason Nordsell sued his employer GMAC Mortgage under the Americans with Disabilities Act for alleged retaliation after he refused to participate in a company practice involving undisclosed cash payments on short sale closings, which he claimed violated RESPA. He also brought Texas state-law claims for wrongful discharge under Sabine Pilot and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court granted GMAC's motion to dismiss the Sabine Pilot claim because Nordsell remained employed and had not been discharged or constructively discharged, and the exception applies only to actual terminations. The court also dismissed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim because it was based on the same facts as the ADA claim and Texas law treats it as a gap-filler tort unavailable when other remedies exist.
This case involved an African-American truck driver who sued his former employer, J.B. Hunt Transport, alleging racial discrimination and retaliation under Title VII, violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and libel based on the company's report to a private driver database stating he had been discharged after a preventable accident. The district court granted the employer's motion for summary judgment on all claims. On the discrimination and retaliation claims, the court applied the McDonnell Douglas framework and found that the plaintiff failed to show the employer's legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for termination and discipline were pretextual. On the libel claim, the court held there was no evidence of actual malice in the database communication. The court granted the plaintiff's motion to amend but denied the cross-motion for summary judgment and various motions to strike and for judicial notice.
This case arose from a 2007 Kansas highway accident in which Don Ashton died after his Hummer was struck by a drunk driver; plaintiff Kelly Ashton, suing on behalf of the estate, alleged that Ashton survived the initial collision and was then run over and killed by an eighteen-wheeler driven by defendant George Muthee and owned by defendant Knight Transportation. After denying summary judgment, the court addressed plaintiff's motion for sanctions, finding by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants had engaged in spoliation by destroying or altering key evidence, including the truck's front steer tires (replaced and then lost after the accident) and Qualcomm messages between Muthee and Knight in the days surrounding the incident. The court granted the motion, concluding that the defendants acted in bad faith both before and after the lawsuit was filed, and that this conduct warranted sanctions including an adverse-inference instruction. The decision rested on the defendants' failure to preserve evidence they had a duty to maintain once litigation was reasonably foreseeable, along with their efforts to conceal or falsify records such as driver logs.
This case involves the Securities and Exchange Commission bringing an enforcement action against Microtune, Inc. and two former executives, alleging they engaged in a stock option backdating scheme from 2000 to mid-2003 that resulted in improper financial reporting. The court considered motions for summary judgment, focusing on whether the SEC's claims were barred by the five-year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. § 2462. The court determined that the doctrine of fraudulent concealment did not toll the limitations period, as the SEC failed to meet its requirements, and that most requested remedies constituted penalties subject to the limitations period. Consequently, many of the SEC's claims were dismissed as time-barred, except for certain disgorgement claims.