BHDA attorneys Steven H. Weller and Daniel J. Olds will present this Friday, August 6, during the Texas City Attorneys Association (TCAA) 2021 Summer Conference. In their presentation “General Contracts – A Litigator’s Perspective,” Mr. Weller and Mr. Olds will provide tips on drafting contracts to avoid issues that frequently arise in litigation.

BHDA is a sponsor of this year’s conference, which is scheduled for August 4-6, 2021, in Austin. The annual summer conference is hosted by TCAA and includes a variety of CLE sessions created specifically for municipal lawyers. More information is available here.

About Steven Weller and Daniel Olds

Steven Weller is a partner in the Firm’s litigation group. He has more than 17 years of experience representing public entities and private businesses in a range of issues including municipal law, general civil litigation, business contracting, school law, commercial transactions and litigation, insurance law and litigation, real property transactions and disputes, construction matters and litigation, energy transactions and disputes, and open records/open meetings issues. He also represents clients with issues related to disaster response and recovery, including guidance surrounding FEMA claims and policies.

Daniel Olds is an associate in the Firm’s litigation group. He focuses his practice on trial and appellate litigation. Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Olds served as an assistant attorney general in the Tort Litigation Division with the Office of the Attorney General. He also served as the lead appellate attorney for expunctions at the Texas Department of Public Safety and as a briefing attorney for Chief Justice Jim R. Wright of the Eleventh Court of Appeals in Eastland. Mr. Olds is a frequent speaker and writer on topics related to appellate law and statutory interpretation.

With Governor Abbott’s veto period ending on June 20, 2021, Texas officially has new laws amending the Texas Labor Code. BHDA employment law attorneys Vanessa Gonzalez and Daniel Olds provide an explanation on two bills related to workplace harassment that were passed during the 87^th Regular Legislative Session.

HB 21 amends the Labor Code to extend the statute of limitations for filing a sexual harassment complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) to 300 days after the date the alleged conduct occurred. This new deadline matches the deadline to file complaints with the EEOC. Previously, all complaints of unlawful employment practices had to be filed with the TWC within 180 days of the day the unlawful event allegedly took place. HB 21 makes an exception for claims of sexual harassment, extending the deadline to 300 days. Texas is a dual filing state, so filing with the TWC serves as a filing with the EEOC. However, previously if the claim was not filed within 180 days of the alleged unlawful act, those claims were barred from a state court lawsuit and the Plaintiff would have to go to federal court. Now, sexual harassment complainants will have the same 300-day EEOC deadline for complaints of sexual harassment to the TWC and after the TWC (or EEOC) investigation and right to sue letter with applicable deadlines, those claims can be brought in either state or federal court. This bill becomes effective on September 1, 2021.

SB 45 amends the Labor Code relating to sexual harassment in the workplace. Before, protections against workplace harassment in Texas applied only to persons who work for an employer with 15 or more employees. SB 45 defines “employer” as someone who employs one or more employees; in other words, it clearly establishes that sexual harassment by any employer, regardless of how many persons they employ, is unlawful. Therefore, small business with less than 15 employees are now subject to claims of sexual harassment. This bill becomes effective on September 1, 2021.

Related News: New Laws of Interest from the 87th Texas Regular Legislative Session

“The Jurisdiction of Texas Appellate Courts,” an article by BHDA attorney Daniel J. Olds, was included in the recent edition of The Appellate Advocate, a publication of the State Bar of Texas Appellate Section.

In the article, Mr. Olds examines three different jurisdictional issues that may arise in Texas appeals. He also covers how Texas appellate courts determine whether they have jurisdiction in a given case and how Texas notions of jurisdiction differ from those in federal courts. Click here to read more.

Mr. Olds is a member of the Firm’s litigation team and frequently writes about topics related to litigation and appellate issues. His article on restricted appeals was published in the UNT Dallas Law Review in late 2019; he also wrote an article on statutory interpretation for inclusion in the Texas Tech Law Review in the spring of 2020.

BHDA litigation attorney Daniel Olds’s article “Ordinary Meaning, Context, and Textualism in Texas Statutory Interpretation” was published in the most recent edition (Vol. 52, No. 3) of the Texas Tech Law Review.

In the article, Mr. Olds explains that statutory interpretation is one of the most important issues in Texas law because there are now statutes that touch nearly every area of life. Furthermore, it examines how the Texas Supreme Court applies textualism, what disagreements exist on the Texas Supreme Court, and what those disagreements mean for the future of statutory interpretation in Texas. The full article can be accessed through the following link: Ordinary Meaning Context and Textualism

Mr. Olds is a frequent speaker and author on litigation issues. He has led multiple presentations to various audiences over the last year on the topic of statutory interpretation. In addition, he has  addressed the issue of restricted appeals and had an article on the subject published in the UNT Dallas Law Review’s ON THE CUSP in late 2019.

Joshua D. Katz, a partner in the firm’s litigation group, and Daniel J. Olds, an associate in the firm’s litigation group, were presenters at the Texas City Attorneys Association’s (TCAA) annual summer conference, which was held virtually this year.

Mr. Katz’s presentation addressed walking quorums and the Texas Open Meetings Act, and Mr. Olds discussed the attorney-client relationship for city attorneys in his presentation.

For more information about TCAA or the 2020 Summer Conference, please visit their website at texascityattorneys.org.

By Daniel J. Olds

Last week, the Texas Supreme Court settled a long-standing question about restricted appeals in Texas. A restricted appeal, as provided in Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 30, is a special type of appeal that an appellant may bring if: (1) the appeal was filed within six months of the final order being signed; (2) they were a party to the underlying lawsuit; (3) they did not participate in the hearing that resulted in the judgment complained of (and did not timely file any post-trial motions); and (4) there is error on the face of the record.

In Ex parte E.H., a trial court granted E.H. an expunction of his criminal record. The Department of Public Safety, which is a statutory party to all expunction cases but which did not attend the hearing, filed a restricted appeal and argued that the trial court misinterpreted the expunction statute when it granted E.H. an expunction. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals determined that the Department had satisfied the first three elements of a restricted, but held that the there was no error on the face of the record because the trial court did not misinterpret the expunction statute. However, instead of affirming the judgment of the trial court, the court of appeals dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. The Texas Supreme Court reversed that aspect of the court of appeals’ decision, holding that only the first three elements of a restricted appeal are jurisdictional; once a party satisfies the first three elements, the court of appeals must determine the merits of the case just like an ordinary appeal.

What are the consequences of this decision? It is unclear what would have happened if the Texas Supreme Court had decided that the error-on-the-face-of-the-record requirement was also jurisdictional. Indeed the respondent in this case, E.H., stated in their brief that they really did not care how the Court decided that issue one way or another; in E.H.’s mind, they either should win because the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed, or because the court of appeals never had jurisdiction in the first place. Regardless, we now know for sure that, in order to vest an appellate court with jurisdiction to consider a restricted appeal, an appellant need only satisfy the first three elements; once those are satisfied, the court should consider the merits of the appeal.

To read more about restricted appeals, check out Daniel Olds’s article in the UNT Dallas Law Review.

Daniel J. Olds, a litigation associate at BHDA, recently presented a CLE on statutory interpretation for the Austin Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section and a CLE on restricted appeals for the Dallas Bar Association’s Appellate Law Section.

In addition to speaking on restricted appeals, Mr. Olds’s article “The Often Overlooked Appeal: Restricted Appeals in Texas” was published in the Fall of 2019 in the UNT Dallas Law Review.

Mr. Olds focuses his practice on litigation for public and private entities. Daniel has extensive litigation experience, having argued various motions and served as lead counsel in numerous bench trials. He also has extensive appellate experience, having drafted and filed briefs on behalf of clients in nearly every Texas appellate court, including the Texas Supreme Court.

BHDA attorney Daniel Olds recently had his article “The Often-Overlooked Appeal: Restricted Appeals in Texas” published in the UNT Dallas Law Review.

In the article, Daniel addresses the requirements to file and prevail on a restricted appeal and provides discussion of recent case law surrounding restricted appeals. To read the full article, please click here.

Daniel Olds is an associate in the firm’s litigation practice group. His background includes working as an assistant attorney general with the Office of the Texas Attorney General and as an appellate attorney with the Texas Department of Public Safety. For more information about Daniel’s practice and experience, please click here.

The UNT Dallas Law Review includes a two different journals, On the Cusp and Accessible Law, both published online, with students serving as editors for articles written by other students, faculty members, and external authors.