Wright v. McHugh, No. SA:13-CV-449-DAE, slip op. (W.D. Tex. Jan. 17, 2014)(Rodriguez, J.)

Wright was a civilian veterinarian employed by the Army to care for animals used in training for emergency and combat medical care.  Slip op. at 2. Her sitcom-caliber behaviors prompted counseling and reprimands, and she attributed these issues to an attention disorder.  Id. at 3-5.  After Wright over-anesthetized a goat, however, matters quickly went downhill and she was terminated. Id. at 5.  She turned to the EEOC to hear out her discrimination and reprisal claims, but failed to file a formal complaint within the allotted time.  But the Army rescinded its first termination notice in favor of another and Wright tried again.  Id. at 7.  The EEOC rejected her discrimination claims as untimely, but permitted the reprisal claim on the theory that the second termination letter reset the clock.  Id. at 7-8.  The District Court reached the same result in dismissing Wright’s discrimination claims under Rule 12(b)(6).  Id. at 10-19.  Additionally, it found that Wright’s failure to object to the EEOC’s framing of the issue constituted an abandonment of her discrimination claims.  Id. at 22-23.  Thus, only Wright’s reprisal claim survived Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal.  Id. at 23.

Blanton v. Newton Associates, Inc., No. SA:12-CV-1103-XR, slip op. (W.D. Tex. Jan. 14, 2014)(Rodriguez, J.)

Blanton sued his Pizza Hut franchisee/employer for sexual and racial harassment. Slip op. at 1-2. The case was tried to a jury in mid-December 2013, 13 months after it was filed. Id. at 1-2. The jury found that Blanton had been harassed, but not retaliated against; it also found that Pizza Hut had proved its Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense, which requires an employer’s showing that (a) it exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct any harassment, (b) the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities or to otherwise failed to avoid harm. Id. at 4 (quoting Faragher v. Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 807 (1998)). The District Court upheld the jury’s verdict because Pizza Hut had an anti-harassment policy, it promptly dismissed Blanton’s supervisor upon learning of her inappropriate conduct, and Blanton had failed to report the harassment for several months. Slip op. at 4-8. The District Court also rejected Blanton’s complaint that the affirmative defense should not have been allowed into the case after the scheduling order deadline; the defense was formally added to the case in response to Blanton’s own late joinder of additional defendants, and he was not prejudiced because the defense had been explored during discovery. Id. at 8-9.