FORM for At Will Statement and Disclaimer in Applications for Employment–Texas Employment Law
I understand that nothing in this application, or in any prior or subsequent written or oral statement, creates a contract of employment or any rights in the nature of a contract. I agree and understand that if I am hired by the ABC Corporation (ABC), my employment will be at-will, for an indefinite period of time, and may be terminated at any time, with or without cause or notice, at the option of ABC or myself. I understand that I have the right to end my employment at any time and that XYZ retains that same right. I also understand that no one has the authority to enter into any contract, agreement or modification of the foregoing unless such contract, agreement or modification is in writing and signed by the president of ABC.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
The court follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s lead in McKennon v. Nashville Banner Pub. Co., 513 U.S. 352, 115 S.Ct. 879, 130 L.Ed.2d 852 (1995)(decided under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act) and holds that when an employer discovers, after the plaintiff’s filing of a retaliation lawsuit, that there are previously unknown grounds for discharging or refusing to hire the plaintiff, this “after-acquired evidence” does not preclude a finding of liability but does limit the damages and other remedies available to the plaintiff. Assertion of the after-acquired evidence defense may stop the accrual of damages after the point in time when the employer discovered the incriminating information about the plaintiff. Johnson v. Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, 935 S.W.2d 235 (Tex. App.–Houston [1st Dist.] 1996)
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
There is no separate tort cause of action for an employee’s “detrimental reliance” University of Texas System v. Courtney, May 1, 1997, No. 02-94-201-CV-Fort Worth Court of Appeals.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
(A) A person interested under a deed, will, written contract, or other writings constituting a contract or whose rights, status, or other legal relations are affected by statute, municipal ordinance, contract, or franchise may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under the instrument, statute, ordinance, contract or franchise and obtain a declaration of rights, status, or other legal relations there under.
(B) A contract may be construed either before or after there has been a breach.
37.002 provides that the chapter is remedial: “It’s purpose is to settle and to afford relief from uncertainty and in security with respect to rights, status, and other legal relations; and it is to be legally construed and administered.” The Act does not create or enlarge jurisdiction. E.g., Chenault v. Phillips, 914 S.W.2d 140, 141 (Tex. 1996). Pursuant to §37.003, a declaration may be either affirmative or negative in form and effect. Thus, an insured can seek an affirmative finding of coverage, or an insurer can seek a negative determination that coverage does not exist. However, each party must still plead for relief and carry its own burden of proof. See, e.g., City of Galveston v. Giles, 902 S.W.2d 167 (Tex. App.–Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, no writ); Employers Cas. Co. v. Tilley, 484 S.W.2d 802, 806 (Tex. Civ. App.–Beaumont 1972), aff’d other grounds, 496 S.W.2d 552 (Tex. 1973) (court had no authority to order declaration against insurer in response to insured’s motion for summary judgment on insurer’s claims); Indigo Oil, Inc. v. Wiser Oil Co., 1998 TEX. APP. LEXIS 7550 (Tex. App.–Dallas 1998, pet. denied) (failure to satisfy burden is not finding of proof of opposite).
37.008 provides that the court may refuse to render a declaratory judgment if the judgment would not terminate the uncertainty or controversy giving rise to the proceeding.
(a) In a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction, except with respect to Federal taxes . . . any court of the United States, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought. Any such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and shall be reviewable as such.
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2202. Further relief
Further necessary or proper relief based on a declaratory judgment or decree may be granted, after reasonable notice and hearing, against any adverse party whose rights have been determined by such judgment.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
Specialized Expertise with Investigating, Prosecuting Insurance Fraud
AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) announced William “Doug” Wallace as a fraud prosecutor who will work exclusively with criminal prosecutors in the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to combat insurance fraud.
Wallace has two decades of insurance industry experience and has focused much of his professional career on special investigations and fraud as well as insurance defense, coverage and subrogation. He spent four years at Nationwide Insurance Trial Division and also served as general counsel of US Lloyds Insurance Company. He is a 2005 graduate of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Before attending law school, Wallace spent 12 years in the insurance industry as a claims adjuster, supervisor, manager, and litigation manager.
TDI partners with district attorneys in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Bexar counties to provide expertise in the investigation and prosecution of insurance fraud.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
AUSTIN, TX — Commissioner of Workers’ Compensation, Ryan Brannan, recently announced final disciplinary actions taken by the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC).
The final actions include administrative penalties ordered against insurance carriers and health care providers in the workers’ compensation system. Beginning January 1, 2015, through May 31, 2015, the Commissioner of Workers’ Compensation has ordered administrative penalties totaling $803,500 for system participants. The penalties include $588,300 in fines ordered for insurance carriers, $169,700 in fines ordered for health care providers, and $45,500 in fines ordered for other entities.
Violations of the Texas Labor Code by insurance carriers cited in recent orders include failure to accurately and timely pay benefits ordered to an injured employee, failure to accurately and timely notify DWC of termination of benefits, and failure to pay benefits in accordance with a designated doctor examination. Violations cited in orders naming health care providers include improper billing of medical services to an injured employee; issuing improper, unreasonable, or medically unnecessary treatment or medical services to an injured employee; and failure to timely file and/or accurately complete DWC forms, reports, or records. Violations cited in orders naming other entities include failure to timely respond to DWC when ordered to produce requested documents.
Copies of Commissioner of Workers’ Compensation orders also may be obtained by calling Maria Jimenez, DWC Enforcement, at (512) 804-4703 or via e-mail to Maria.Jimenez@tdi.texas.gov.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
“I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights.”
-Abraham Lincoln
“My principles are freedom for all people… I‘m trying to wake up Hollywood. It‘s been a bastion of freedom but they‘re being deceived, suckered into this indoctrination of the federal government which is leading toward a totalitarian country. They‘ve lost sight of individual liberty.” Daily Variety
-Aaron Russo, Hollywood producer
“The most flagrant acts of injustice were perpetrated for the purpose of forcing a particular dogma upon the Democratic organization, and the gentleman who is the representative of that dogma is the representative also of principles which I will be able to show repugnant alike to reason and the Constitution.”
-John Breckinridge
“The Turkish denial [of the Armenian Christian Genocide] is probably the foremost example of historical perversion. With a mix of academic sophistication and diplomatic thuggery — of which we at Macquarie University have been targets — the Turks have put both memory and history into reverse gear.”
-Stanley Cohen, Professor of Criminology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
“Conscious of my own weakness, I can only seek fervently the guidance of the Ruler of the Universe, and, relying on His all-powerful aid, do my best to restore Union and peace to a suffering people, and to establish and guard their liberties and rights.”
-George B. McClellan
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
-Haile Selassie, Emperor of Egypt
“We will not be a party to the monstrous doctrine of coercion.”
-John W. Ellis
“The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn’t much matter who controls it, because it can’t do you much harm.”
-Harry Browne
“The strongest cause in bringing the Texas Revolution against the Mexican government was… they could not understand our methods of government and we could not endure their idea of a republic.”
-A Texas Revolutionary
“Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.” 1874
-Benjamin Disraeli
“The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism …” Ex Parte Milligan, 1866
-U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis
“A soldier’s life is not a pleasant one. It is always, at best, one of privations and hardships. The emotions of patriotism and pleasure hardly counterbalance the toil and suffering that he has to undergo in order to enjoy his patriotism and pleasure. Dying on the field of battle and glory is about the easiest duty a soldier has to undergo. It is the living, marching, fighting, shooting soldier that has the hardships of war to carry. When a brave soldier is killed he is at rest. The living soldier knows not at what moment he, too, may be called on to lay down his life on the altar of his country. The dead are heroes, the living are but men compelled to do the drudgery and suffer the privations incident to the thing called “glorious war.”
-Samuel Watkins
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
-Voltaire
“No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words “no” and “not” employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.”
-Edmund A. Opitz
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
AUSTIN – A Travis County district court has granted preliminary approval of a settlement with Farmers Insurance Group that will return $84.4 million to policyholders stemming from a 2002 rate case.
“I’m pleased with the court’s decision,” said Texas Insurance Commissioner David Mattax. “It’s time to return this money to policyholders, who have been waiting for more than a decade. These refunds, combined with the rate reductions Farmers agreed to in 2002, are excellent news for consumers.”
Mattax noted that the court’s original approval of the settlement in 2003 described the agreement as “an extraordinarily high percentage of recovery on the claims that were asserted.” The amended version adds an additional $10 million for consumers to account for the delays while the settlement was challenged in court.
Notices about the settlement will be mailed within 60 days to people who may be eligible for a refund.
Mattax also thanked the Texas Attorney General’s Office for its work representing the state in the long, complex case.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
AUSTIN, TX — The Division of Workers’ Compensation is hosting a regional workplace safety workshop August 12 in Austin to help employers learn how to avoid common workplace injuries and comply with federal safety requirements.
The workshop will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Austin-Town Lake, 20 North IH-35. The cost is $50 per person, which includes coffee and snacks. Presentations will cover:
Components of an effective accident prevention program.
Guidance on complying with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) programs and training.
The latest information on safe work areas, construction requirements for exit routes, and how to develop effective emergency action plans and fire prevention plans.
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
“American Jeffersonian Democracy was born of a Rebellion against a Tyrannical Government.”
-David Bridges
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
-Samuel Adams
“No word appeared more grand, more expressive or significant than this. Under God as the asserter of our rights, the defender of our liberties, our protector against danger, our mediator, our ruler and guardian, and, as the avenger of our wrongs and the punisher of our crimes, we endeavor to equal or even excel our ancestors. What word can be suggested of more power, and so replete with sentiments and thoughts consonant with our idea of the omnipotence and justice of God?”
-Rapahel Semmes
“Benevolence comes from within as a reflection of our personal, individual sense of well-being. To force it, externally – through moral intimidation (altruism), social intimidation (duty), or at the point of a gun (legislation) – debilitates our personal sense of well-being and negates the source of benevolence.” (4/7/04)
– Richard Rieben
“Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.”
-Patrick Henry
“Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow.”
-S.R. Gist
“A nation can only be free, happy, and great in proportion to the virtue and intelligence of the people.”
-Stephen F. Austin
“Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” Hier Stehe ich. Ich Kann nicht anders. Gott helf mir. Amen
-Martin Luther
“Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics.”
-Ludwig von Mises
“I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.”
-Harriet Tubman
“There is nothing stable but Heaven and the Constitution.”
-James Buchanan
“Our most cherished tradition is a free society where man can learn, can work, can go as far as his own capacity carries him and seek the goals of his own choosing. In a free society, knowledge can- not be decreed; it must be sought. Opportunity cannot be assured; it must be cultivated. Security cannot be given; it must be earned. In this climate of freedom we have built a system of government necessary to the growth of the nation and the progress of the people. Civilized men create government to meet their needs, and its very role demands responsiveness to change. But when that government becomes so unwieldly, so inflexible that it fails to serve those who created it for their com-mon good, it becomes a burdensome and negative force.” Texas Governor’s Inaugural Address, 1965
-John Connally
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled. The assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
“You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.”
-David Crockett
“Wherever politics intrudes upon economic life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth and honesty, the state then tends to become a major source of insincerity and mendacity.”
– Hans F. Sennholz
“Those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
– John F. Kennedy
Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.
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