Watchdog Bytes

Feds sue Dallas physician group for executive's sexual comments, dirty jokes



An executive assistant was fired after she objected to repeated lewd comments by a division-level CEO at Dallas-based EmCare, one of the largest providers of emergency room physicians in the country, according to the U.S. Equal Employ¬ment Opportunity Commission.
The company previously provided physicians to the emergency department at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. Company officials could not be reached for comment.
The commission says that the executive assistant was subjected to sexually explicit remarks throughout her employment from the CEO of one of EmCare's divisions. Comments included references to female employees' breasts, derogatory references to women as well as sexual jokes, the EEOC said.  The woman did not believe she could complain because “she had heard members of the human resources department stating that they did not want employees coming to them with complaints.” 
In fact, the EEOC alleges EmCare retaliated against two other employees who complained to the human resources department about the inappropriate sexual comments and be¬havior of the division CEO. 
“Very shortly after lodging their com¬plaints with human resources, these individuals were terminated,” according to the EEOC. 
The executive assistant was herself terminated shortly after she told the accused CEO that she did not believe his conduct was appro¬priate, according to the EEOC.
 “This is the kind of situation in which liability for violations of Title VII can mushroom because of the employer’s own actions,” said Robert A. Canino, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Dallas District Office.  “Attempts to sweep discrimination under the carpet by removing witnesses from the workplace can be a costly strategy if the EEOC finds the victims when the dust finally settles.” 

-- Darren Barbee

Yellow flag: Texas appellate justice sneaks 'thrilling' UT-OU game recap into legal opinion



Anyone who has ever read a legal documents knows they can be dull -- ‘cept when we’re talkin’ ‘bout football in Texas.
Toss in a pigskin and dang it if a district court of appeals in Austin didn’t have itself a recent tailgate party amid pages of otherwise somber legal opinion, writing a passage worthy of Sports Illustrated.
“The game itself would be a success,” the court wrote in its opinion, “with the `Horns defeating the Sooners in a thrilling 45-35 shootout between the two undefeated, top-five nationally ranked teams, a win that catapulted the `Horns to a #1 ranking for a few weeks...” Thanks for the recap of that 2008 game.
Watchdog’s penalty flag has just been tossed. Having read the entire, yards long opinion, we can’t figure out how this paragraph has anything to do with the case. So we investigated.
The case concerned fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon chartering two buses for a trip to the game from Austin. The frat claimed there weren't enough seats, the drivers didn’t know Interstate 35 was the route from Austin to Dallas and the drivers also didn't speak English, court documents say. The Greeks got a default judgment against the bus company of $256,000.
The court set aside the quarter million dollar default judgment. 
All of that seems in order. But we did a little digging, cause we are Watchdog.
Here's some inside info: Seems the guy who wrote the opinion, Bob Pemberton, taught advanced civil trial and appellate law at the University of Texas School of Law before become an appellate justice.
Hook ('em), line and sinker.

 -- Darren Barbee