Brenda Brewer, Deanna Meador, Penny Adams and Sabra Curry v. Lowe's Home Centers Inc.
12-14-00155-CV
Tex. App.Oct 14, 2015Background
- Four Lowe’s employees (Brewer, Meador, Adams, Curry) were injured at work, filed workers’ compensation claims, then took extended leaves.
- Each employee was terminated after exceeding Lowe’s personal leave limit (240 days for three; Meador’s deadline later extended to 365 days).
- Termination letters were computer-generated by Lowe’s home office; store management did not make the termination decisions.
- Claimants alleged Lowe’s forced them to violate light-duty restrictions, misclassified their leaves as "personal" (not workers’ comp), and used the personal leave policy as a pretext to retaliate for filing claims.
- The trial court granted Lowe’s motion for directed verdict, finding Claimants presented no evidence of causation or to rebut Lowe’s stated reason for discharge.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether Claimants showed causation for a retaliatory-discharge claim | Filing workers’ compensation claims and alleged pressure to violate restrictions caused or precipitated their terminations | Termination resulted from uniform enforcement of Lowe’s personal leave policy, not retaliation | Court affirmed: Claimants did not raise a fact issue on causation (addressed indirectly by resolving pretext) |
| Whether Lowe’s personal leave policy was a pretext (not uniformly applied) | Policy was misapplied: leaves should have been classified as limitless workers’ comp and required personnel-file warnings/forms were missing | Policy was uniformly enforced centrally; terminations were computer-generated per policy; missing recommended forms are not proof of noncompliance | Court held Claimants failed to show nonuniform application or other evidence of pretext; directed verdict proper |
Key Cases Cited
- Coastal Transp. Co. v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp., 136 S.W.3d 227 (Tex. 2004) (standard for reviewing directed verdicts and more-than-a-scintilla evidentiary threshold)
- Prudential Ins. Co. v. Fin. Review Servs., 29 S.W.3d 74 (Tex. 2000) (directed verdict principles when plaintiff fails to raise fact issue or defense is conclusively established)
- Cont’l Coffee Prods. Co. v. Cazarez, 937 S.W.2d 444 (Tex. 1996) (retaliatory discharge requires showing termination would not have occurred but for filing a workers’ compensation claim)
- Tex. Div.-Tranter, Inc. v. Carrozza, 876 S.W.2d 312 (Tex. 1994) (uniform enforcement of a reasonable absence policy is not retaliatory discharge)
- Haggar Clothing Co. v. Hernandez, 164 S.W.3d 386 (Tex. 2005) (circumstantial evidence of causation is immaterial if terminations followed uniform enforcement of absence policy)
- Larsen v. Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist., 296 S.W.3d 118 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2009) (to prove nonuniform enforcement, terminated employee must show similarly situated employees received preferential treatment)