Recently in Wrongful Termination Category

An Austin school district's former director of diversity and intercultural relations reached a settlement with the school board earlier this month, where the district will be paying $149,500 to the former employee after a wrongful termination dispute.

The Austin Statesman reports that the settlement money Margarita Decierdo will be receiving is equivalent to about a year's worth of pay and her attorney fees. The woman was a contract employee with the school district and was in the second year of her three-year contract with the district when she was terminated.

After multiple rounds of mediation, the two former nurses that filed a claim against Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Texas reached a settlement. The New York Times reports that the two nurses that were fired and criminally prosecuted for reporting allegations of improper medical treatment by Dr. Ronaldo Arafiles at the county hospital, will be splitting a $750,000 payment.

The nurses Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle were acquitted of felony charges of misusing public information earlier this year. Their lawsuit, which named Dr. Arafiles and hospital administrator Stan Wiley as defendants in the suit, in addition to naming the county hospital as a defendant, stated that the two nurses had been subjected to vindictive prosecution and that they had been denied of their First Amendment rights.

Texas employment lawyers have named Harris County in a lawsuit that focuses on the county sheriff's office, where one employee claims that he was fired for simply being a whistleblower.

ABC News reports that the former IT director of the sheriff's office Wilfrido Willie Mata contacted the FBI when an outsider hacked into the county's computer system, even though he was asked to "look the other way" and not tell the county of the hacking. He later disclosed his cooperation with the FBI to the sheriff's office.

George Lucas' company is now being criticized by employment lawyers across the country after a California jury awarded a former employee of the company $114,000 in damages in a wrongful termination suit.

The San Francisco based film company brought the Star Wars series and Indiana Jones films into the world, but many people may now be questioning how employees are treated at the film company. The Bay Citizen reports that former employee Julie Veronese sued the company, alleging that she was terminated from her position because she was pregnant.

Several former employees of a Texas City refinery filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in Galveston County District Court against Mobley Industrial Services Inc. and BP Company, alleging that they were fired from their positions because of retaliation.

Miguel Castillo, David Shivram, Daniel Sotelo and William Clayton Jr. are the plaintiffs in this case that were employed with Mobley Industrial Services while working at the BP Texas City refinery on March 31. The Southeast Texas Record reports that the employees were trying to blast a pipe at the refinery, but that the pipe let out hazardous materials in their vicinity.

Two former nurses have filed a claim for wrongful termination against Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Texas, but the former employees and their Texas employment lawyer have so far failed to reach a settlement after two rounds of mediation.

The Odessa American reports that U.S. District Judge Rob Junell won't order that the parties go through a third round of mediation, unless both sides see another mediation session as worthwhile. A pre-trial hearing has been set with this case for November 16.

Nurses Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle are suing Winkler County Memorial Hospital and several county officials after they reported Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr. to the Texas Medical Board. The nurses claim that they reported Dr. Rolando Arafiles to officials because they were concerned about his medical practices, but the county attorneys claim that the complaints were filed "in bad faith" and were done because of a personal feud they had with the doctor.

One employee of B&E Resources has had to go through a great deal of legal trouble to receive workers' compensation. The Southeast Texas Record reports that the plaintiff, Webster Perkins, sustained work-related injuries while working for Professional Business Solutions, B&E Resources and Breckenridge Enterprises on July 24, 2008.

After the injury, Webster Perkins filed a workers' compensation claim with the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission, but the Texas Department of Insurance-Workers' Compensation Division filed an appeal. The appeals panel reportedly found that the man was not considered an employee of Breckenridge Enterprises at the time of the accident.