Cohabitating “Spouse” Allowed Death Benefits Under Texas Common Law Rules

Texas Employee Recovers in Tort Against Employer Following Parking Lot Fall

Texas Court Stresses Comp Carrier is Entitled to Full “First Money” in Worker’s Third-Party Tort Settlement

Reiterating that aTexas workers’ compensation carrier is entitled to the “first money” an injured worker recovered in a third-party tort action—here, settlement of a medical malpractice claim—and stressing further that...

Civil Action Related to COVID-19 Death of Texas Employee Barred by Exclusivity

A federal district court, sitting in Texas and construing Texas law, granted a defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment in a civil action filed against it by the family of a...

Texas Employee’s Suit Against Co-Worker for Dog Bite is Barred by Exclusivity

A defendant/co-worker’s act of bringing her dog to the employer’s residential facility for pregnant women to serve as a comfort animal was an activity that had to do with and...

Texas Employee’s Suit Against Non-Subscribing Employer Can Be Removed to Federal Court

A federal district court in Texas held that a Texas employee’s civil action against his non-subscribing employer did not arise out of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act (“TWCA”), in spite...

Texas High Court Collides with 10th Circuit’s Air Ambulance Decision

In a long, winding, yet carefully-worded decision (with both concurring and dissenting opinions), a divided Supreme Court of Texas held the federal Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) does not preempt Texas’s...

TX Deputy’s Fatal Injuries While Traveling Home in Patrol Car Were Compensable

Reversing a lower appellate court, the Supreme Court of Texas held that because the summary judgment evidence established that a deputy sheriff — who died in a vehicular accident involving...

Provision of Company Vehicle to Texas Employee Does Not Necessarily Bring Commute Within Employment

The mere gratuitous furnishing of transportation by the employer to the employee as an accommodation, and not as an integral part of the contract of employment, does not, by itself,...

Provision of Vehicle to Employee Not Controlling Factor in Texas Death Benefits Case

The provision by an employer of a company-owned vehicle was insufficient to establish a work-connection between an employee’s fatal vehicle accident and the employment, held a Texas appellate court recently...

Texas Gross Negligence Statute Requires Showing of Both Objective and Subjective Elements

Construing Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 408.001(b), which provides that the exclusive remedy provision of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act does not prohibit the recovery of exemplary damages by the...

Texas Employer Not Liable for Gross Negligence After Heat-Related Death

A Texas appellate court recently affirmed a trial court’s summary judgment in favor of an employer in a gross negligence action filed against it by the family of a worker...