0Establish ‘loser pays' rules, in which people who sue and lose must pay court costs and legal expenses of the people they sued.
Enact ‘early dismissal' option for obviously frivolous lawsuits.
Establish expedited trials and limited discovery for lawsuits with claims between $10,000 and $100,000.
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on February 9th, 2011
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on February 5th, 2011
By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
It didn't last long, but it caused plenty of trouble.
Austin shut down — and hunkered down — on the third day of an Arctic blast after a layer of freezing rain coated streets and highways. Up to 2 inches of snow followed Friday, blanketing the region.
The conditions brought the area to a crawl, leading schools to cancel and businesses to shutter and causing hundreds of wrecks as motorists ventured onto streets that in places resembled ice-skating rinks.
But by late afternoon Friday, most of the snow and ice had melted. Temperatures warmed to 40 degrees, and forecasters predict that they will rise to near 60 today — the most balmy since a strong cold front swept through the area Tuesday and plunged temperatures into the teens and 20s.
Although authorities deemed most of the more than 300 crashes in Austin minor, a North Texas teenager was killed late Thursday near Pflugerville in a collision that injured three other teens.
Hospital officials treated crash victims and people who had slipped and fallen. St. David's Medical Center reported that it had tended to two people for hypothermia.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
It didn't last long, but it caused plenty of trouble.
Austin shut down — and hunkered down — on the third day of an Arctic blast after a layer of freezing rain coated streets and highways. Up to 2 inches of snow followed Friday, blanketing the region.
The conditions brought the area to a crawl, leading schools to cancel and businesses to shutter and causing hundreds of wrecks as motorists ventured onto streets that in places resembled ice-skating rinks.
But by late afternoon Friday, most of the snow and ice had melted. Temperatures warmed to 40 degrees, and forecasters predict that they will rise to near 60 today — the most balmy since a strong cold front swept through the area Tuesday and plunged temperatures into the teens and 20s.
Although authorities deemed most of the more than 300 crashes in Austin minor, a North Texas teenager was killed late Thursday near Pflugerville in a collision that injured three other teens.
Hospital officials treated crash victims and people who had slipped and fallen. St. David's Medical Center reported that it had tended to two people for hypothermia.
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on January 19th, 2011
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on January 17th, 2011
There are more than 70,000 attorneys licensed to practice in Texas. Only 7,000 are Board Certified.
Board Certified lawyers earn the right to publicly represent themselves as a specialist in a select area of the law. In fact, they are the only attorneys allowed by the State Bar of Texas to do so. This designation sets them apart as being an attorney with the highest, public commitment to excellence in their area of law.
Board Certification is not a one-time event. It requires an ongoing involvement in the specialty area which is periodically substantiated with references from peers in that field. It also requires annual professional refreshment through TBLS approved, continuing legal education course work to stay abreast of current trends in law.
To learn more about Board Certification click here
Board Certified lawyers earn the right to publicly represent themselves as a specialist in a select area of the law. In fact, they are the only attorneys allowed by the State Bar of Texas to do so. This designation sets them apart as being an attorney with the highest, public commitment to excellence in their area of law.
Board Certification is not a one-time event. It requires an ongoing involvement in the specialty area which is periodically substantiated with references from peers in that field. It also requires annual professional refreshment through TBLS approved, continuing legal education course work to stay abreast of current trends in law.
To learn more about Board Certification click here
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on June 17th, 2009
By Juan Castillo AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Though it robustly feeds the city's growth and economy — generating an estimated $3.5 billion-plus annually in wages alone — Austin's commercial and residential construction industry frequently puts workers' safety, health and financial well-being at risk, according to a study released Tuesday by a worker advocacy group.
Combining results from surveys of more than 300 Austin construction workers and industry-related data from federal and state agencies, the 68-page study, "Building Austin, Building Injustice," depicts an industry rampant with poor and dangerous working conditions. Although many builders, developers and contractors are model employers, the study notes, others cut costs by not paying some workers for overtime, not paying some at all, misclassifying others as independent contractors, and failing to provide proper safety equipment such as harnesses and helmets, violations of federal and state regulations.
In doing so, they shift the toll to the public. Low-wage workers often depend on government support, hospitals and charities, the report said.
Industry representatives who had seen summaries of the study disputed the findings.
"I know of no one, certainly no one active in our association, who speaks out in favor of violating state and federal construction laws," said Harry Savio, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin.
"We recognize the critical need for safety on our job sites," said Phil Thoden, president of the Austin chapter of Associated General Contractors of America. "We employ a full-time safety director to assist members with safety services and offer classes both in Spanish and English. Unfortunately, accidents occur, no matter how much precaution is taken."
'Pretty deplorable'
Release of the study by the Austin-based Workers Defense Project comes on the heels of last week's deaths of three men in a scaffolding collapse at a high-rise apartment construction project near the University of Texas. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating. A spokeswoman said the agency does not comment during an investigation.
The study found that violations of workplace regulations are common in the industry, and federal, state and local governments are either ill-equipped to investigate or lax about enforcement.
"The report is just shocking in the way that it shows how the industry (in Austin) is really rife with these conditions that are pretty deplorable in terms of safety and health issues," said Richard Heyman, a UT professor and an adviser and researcher on the study. A specialist in urban development studies, Heyman said the report reveals systemic, structural failures.
"Employers rely on these kinds of conditions and on the fact that the public will pick up the bill for their lack of ability or lack of willingness to do the right thing," Heyman said.
The report illuminates questionable practices that have dogged the construction industry nationally. This is the first such study conducted in Austin.
A spokeswoman for the National Employment Law Project in New York said the findings were not surprising.
"It's really important data and research, but the construction industry (nationally) has often been the poster child of how workplace violations are just running rampant," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, a senior attorney and legal co-director at the project, which informally advised the Austin workers group but did not participate in the study.
Status plays a role
Ruckelshaus said one reason workplace violations persist is that enforcement is largely based on complaints. The industry nationwide is dominated by immigrant workers, and many are reluctant to complain out of fear they will lose their jobs or be investigated by immigration authorities, she said.
Ann Hatchitt, a spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission, said the agency investigates all worker wage claims and does not ask questions about a person's immigration status.
Citing 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the study notes that 70 percent of Travis County construction workers that year were foreign-born, a 21 percent increase from 2000.
The Workers Defense Project helps low-wage laborers recover unpaid wages and advocates fair working conditions on their behalf. Director Cristina Tzintzún said the construction industry plays a vital role in the city's economy and the working conditions in the industry had never been studied.
The report said the construction industry employs more than 50,000 people in the Austin area, making it one of the top 10 industry employers.
Tzintzún said researchers visited about 100 commercial and residential building sites in Austin, chosen randomly, and surveyed more than 300 workers. They conducted longer interviews with about three dozen workers and employers. The survey was vetted by UT's Institutional Review Board, which typically signs off on research methodology.
Savio questioned if the study's sample size unfairly painted the industry with too broad a brush.
Heyman said the methodology was sound and that surveyors randomly visited job sites from a city database of all active building permits and then approached workers randomly, typically at entrances to job sites. Researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago also joined in the study.
One in five construction workers told the questioners that they were not always paid, one in five reported suffering an injury that required medical attention at some point during their careers, and 45 percent earned poverty-level wages.
Other major findings:
Though overtime work in the construction industry is common, half of workers who did so reported receiving no overtime pay, a violation of wage and hour laws.
Nearly four in 10 workers were misclassified as independent contractors, denying them legal protections to overtime pay, workers' compensation coverage and benefits.
Sixty-four percent said they had received no basic health or safety training provided by OSHA. The training is voluntary.
A majority of workers lacked employer-based health insurance, pensions and sick or vacation days. Only 45 percent of workers said they had workers' compensation coverage. In Texas, employers can opt out of workers' comp.
Most workers earned $10 an hour. Using federal guidelines, the report calculated a poverty hourly wage as $10.56 an hour, based on a family of four.
Drawing on existing data, the report also says that Texas led the nation in construction-related deaths in 2007 with 142 fatalities, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Tzintzún said similar data is not available by city. Per capita data is not tracked by state.
Texas had 23,900 construction-related injuries in 2007, an incident rate of 3.7 per 100 full-time workers, according to the Department of Labor. In all private industries, Texas had 242,000 injuries in 2007, an incident rate of 3.3 per 100 full-time workers.
According to the report, the state agency that investigates wage and hour violations, the Texas Workforce Commission, has not performed field investigations since 1993, handling complaints by telephone and mail.
Hatchitt said it would be cost-prohibitive for the agency's 23 staff investigators to travel across the state to investigate 15,000 to 20,000 wage claims a year. She said that in the past six years, the commission's Labor Law and Wage Claims Department helped more than 100,000 Texas workers recover more than $23 million in wages.
The report's authors call on policymakers and employers to do more to decrease the number of deaths in the industry, promote safe, humane working conditions and ensure enforcement against wage theft. When hiring subcontractors, general contractors should take into account working conditions, including wage theft, the report says.
Savio says most builders associations offer their workers training and says wage theft hurts everyone in the industry.
"If I'm a reputable builder and I have reputable subcontractors paying their guys and they're competing against fly-by-night con men, it disrupts the whole economic system," Savio said.
Though it robustly feeds the city's growth and economy — generating an estimated $3.5 billion-plus annually in wages alone — Austin's commercial and residential construction industry frequently puts workers' safety, health and financial well-being at risk, according to a study released Tuesday by a worker advocacy group.
Combining results from surveys of more than 300 Austin construction workers and industry-related data from federal and state agencies, the 68-page study, "Building Austin, Building Injustice," depicts an industry rampant with poor and dangerous working conditions. Although many builders, developers and contractors are model employers, the study notes, others cut costs by not paying some workers for overtime, not paying some at all, misclassifying others as independent contractors, and failing to provide proper safety equipment such as harnesses and helmets, violations of federal and state regulations.
In doing so, they shift the toll to the public. Low-wage workers often depend on government support, hospitals and charities, the report said.
Industry representatives who had seen summaries of the study disputed the findings.
"I know of no one, certainly no one active in our association, who speaks out in favor of violating state and federal construction laws," said Harry Savio, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin.
"We recognize the critical need for safety on our job sites," said Phil Thoden, president of the Austin chapter of Associated General Contractors of America. "We employ a full-time safety director to assist members with safety services and offer classes both in Spanish and English. Unfortunately, accidents occur, no matter how much precaution is taken."
'Pretty deplorable'
Release of the study by the Austin-based Workers Defense Project comes on the heels of last week's deaths of three men in a scaffolding collapse at a high-rise apartment construction project near the University of Texas. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating. A spokeswoman said the agency does not comment during an investigation.
The study found that violations of workplace regulations are common in the industry, and federal, state and local governments are either ill-equipped to investigate or lax about enforcement.
"The report is just shocking in the way that it shows how the industry (in Austin) is really rife with these conditions that are pretty deplorable in terms of safety and health issues," said Richard Heyman, a UT professor and an adviser and researcher on the study. A specialist in urban development studies, Heyman said the report reveals systemic, structural failures.
"Employers rely on these kinds of conditions and on the fact that the public will pick up the bill for their lack of ability or lack of willingness to do the right thing," Heyman said.
The report illuminates questionable practices that have dogged the construction industry nationally. This is the first such study conducted in Austin.
A spokeswoman for the National Employment Law Project in New York said the findings were not surprising.
"It's really important data and research, but the construction industry (nationally) has often been the poster child of how workplace violations are just running rampant," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, a senior attorney and legal co-director at the project, which informally advised the Austin workers group but did not participate in the study.
Status plays a role
Ruckelshaus said one reason workplace violations persist is that enforcement is largely based on complaints. The industry nationwide is dominated by immigrant workers, and many are reluctant to complain out of fear they will lose their jobs or be investigated by immigration authorities, she said.
Ann Hatchitt, a spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission, said the agency investigates all worker wage claims and does not ask questions about a person's immigration status.
Citing 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the study notes that 70 percent of Travis County construction workers that year were foreign-born, a 21 percent increase from 2000.
The Workers Defense Project helps low-wage laborers recover unpaid wages and advocates fair working conditions on their behalf. Director Cristina Tzintzún said the construction industry plays a vital role in the city's economy and the working conditions in the industry had never been studied.
The report said the construction industry employs more than 50,000 people in the Austin area, making it one of the top 10 industry employers.
Tzintzún said researchers visited about 100 commercial and residential building sites in Austin, chosen randomly, and surveyed more than 300 workers. They conducted longer interviews with about three dozen workers and employers. The survey was vetted by UT's Institutional Review Board, which typically signs off on research methodology.
Savio questioned if the study's sample size unfairly painted the industry with too broad a brush.
Heyman said the methodology was sound and that surveyors randomly visited job sites from a city database of all active building permits and then approached workers randomly, typically at entrances to job sites. Researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago also joined in the study.
One in five construction workers told the questioners that they were not always paid, one in five reported suffering an injury that required medical attention at some point during their careers, and 45 percent earned poverty-level wages.
Other major findings:
Though overtime work in the construction industry is common, half of workers who did so reported receiving no overtime pay, a violation of wage and hour laws.
Nearly four in 10 workers were misclassified as independent contractors, denying them legal protections to overtime pay, workers' compensation coverage and benefits.
Sixty-four percent said they had received no basic health or safety training provided by OSHA. The training is voluntary.
A majority of workers lacked employer-based health insurance, pensions and sick or vacation days. Only 45 percent of workers said they had workers' compensation coverage. In Texas, employers can opt out of workers' comp.
Most workers earned $10 an hour. Using federal guidelines, the report calculated a poverty hourly wage as $10.56 an hour, based on a family of four.
Drawing on existing data, the report also says that Texas led the nation in construction-related deaths in 2007 with 142 fatalities, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Tzintzún said similar data is not available by city. Per capita data is not tracked by state.
Texas had 23,900 construction-related injuries in 2007, an incident rate of 3.7 per 100 full-time workers, according to the Department of Labor. In all private industries, Texas had 242,000 injuries in 2007, an incident rate of 3.3 per 100 full-time workers.
According to the report, the state agency that investigates wage and hour violations, the Texas Workforce Commission, has not performed field investigations since 1993, handling complaints by telephone and mail.
Hatchitt said it would be cost-prohibitive for the agency's 23 staff investigators to travel across the state to investigate 15,000 to 20,000 wage claims a year. She said that in the past six years, the commission's Labor Law and Wage Claims Department helped more than 100,000 Texas workers recover more than $23 million in wages.
The report's authors call on policymakers and employers to do more to decrease the number of deaths in the industry, promote safe, humane working conditions and ensure enforcement against wage theft. When hiring subcontractors, general contractors should take into account working conditions, including wage theft, the report says.
Savio says most builders associations offer their workers training and says wage theft hurts everyone in the industry.
"If I'm a reputable builder and I have reputable subcontractors paying their guys and they're competing against fly-by-night con men, it disrupts the whole economic system," Savio said.
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on May 18th, 2009
May 18, 2009
By David C. Doolittle – Austin American Statesman | Monday, May 18, 2009, 08:22 AM
The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating a fatal crash that occurred about 5:30 this morning on Texas 195 near County Road 228 north of Florence, officials said.
Parts of the highway have been shut down as officials investigate.
No details have been released by the DPS or the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office
By David C. Doolittle – Austin American Statesman | Monday, May 18, 2009, 08:22 AM
The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating a fatal crash that occurred about 5:30 this morning on Texas 195 near County Road 228 north of Florence, officials said.
Parts of the highway have been shut down as officials investigate.
No details have been released by the DPS or the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office
by Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. on May 15th, 2009
The Law Firm of Rhett Hoestenbach P.C. has just re-launched it's website. As part of the launch, we are excited to have this blog as a place to share insights into injury law.
We strongly encourage you to read the FAQ section to learn more about personal injury cases, and what you should know before selecting a law firm to represent you. Please contact us with any questions you might have. We are always pleased to spend some time speaking with people about the law.
We strongly encourage you to read the FAQ section to learn more about personal injury cases, and what you should know before selecting a law firm to represent you. Please contact us with any questions you might have. We are always pleased to spend some time speaking with people about the law.
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