Labor and Employment

I get questions all the time about the enforceability of noncompetes in Texas.  I have to respond in the most-irritating lawyer-like way possible: I say that the enforceability of any particular noncompete all depends on the language of the noncompete and the facts of the case.  That response predictably results in a long period of

Over the weekend the Washington Post reported that France has enacted a new law that allows employees to ignore work emails outside typical working hours.   According to the Washington Post, the purpose behind the new French law is to reduce the impact of the stress of work on people’s personal time.  While the new French

Texas case law is clear.  Employment is at will, terminable at any time by either party, with or without cause, absent an express agreement to the contrary.  Fed. Exp. Corp. v. Dutschmann, 846 S.W.2d 282, 283 (Tex. 1993).  This means that unless there is an agreement limiting an employer’s right to terminate, an employer

I have been writing on this blog about how Dallas County juries have shifted over the years from pro-defense to pro-plaintiff, or at least to a point where most prospective jurors in Dallas County don’t necessarily consider lawsuits a bad thing.  In the era of tort reform, this attitude among prospective jurors in Dallas

Late last month a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction against implementation of the Obama Administration’s new overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The new rules were supposed to go into effect on December 1, 2016, and would have resulted in substantially more employees becoming eligible for overtime under the FLSA. 

Contracts are important and “the devil is in the details.” Too often I see business owners and experienced entrepreneurs come to me as first time clients with a serious problem. But when we go to review the contract that is at the heart of the issue, I often find that the contract was not professionally

I recently had a trial that caused me to think long and hard about what is the best evidence at trial.  I concluded that documents, photos and videos beat witness testimony hands down. I believe that a case built around documentary evidence is stronger than a case build on witness testimony.

I think the reason

Under contract law, if one party to the contract materially breaches the contract, the other party is discharged or excused from further performance.  That’s clear enough.  The problem comes in when the parties argue whether the term that was breached was material.  The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas issued an opinion this week that

Traditionally, violations of post-employment restrictive covenants were based on former employees actively contacting customers or past co-workers in the real world, or setting up a new brick and mortar business doing the same thing within a confined mile radius. However, the advent of e-commerce and social media has blurred the lines of acceptable (or even

Why do courts seem to hate temporary injunctions?  By the very nature of the relief requested, the parties come to court with urgency for immediate action.  The trial judge has to find time on her docket for a hearing in a case that probably did not exist a week ago.  The parties scramble to conduct