Appellate Court Upholds Summary Dismissal of Worker’s Retaliation Claim

In Bernardino Frausto v. RC Industries, LLC, No. 13-23-00194-CV, January 11, 2024, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi held that RCI’s termination of Frausto’s employment did not constitute retaliatory discharge and affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

RCI, an oil field service company, hired Frausto to perform manual labor in its oil fields. He did not have a vehicle, so one of his supervisors agreed to drive him to/from the worksite. Frausto was later injured at work and RCI filed a workers’ compensation claim on his behalf. Due to his injuries, Frausto was placed on “light duty” which required that he work at an office location rather than the oil fields. This also meant that his supervisor could not provide transportation as before.

Frausto never worked at RCI again: he failed to ever show up for light duty work and stopped informing HR of his absences.

After missing almost a month of work, RCI assumed Frausto had quit. When asked, Frausto claimed he was forced to quit because he did not have a ride to work. He then filed a wrongful termination suit against RCI alleging that the company fired him in retaliation for his workers’ compensation claim, and “discriminated” against him by not providing transportation to work. The trial court ruled in favor of RCI, granting its motion for summary judgment. This appeal followed.

To prevail on his claim, Frausto needed to establish a causal link by demonstrating that his termination would not have occurred but for his filing a workers’ compensation claim and that RCI’s failure to provide transportation to/from work constituted an adverse employment action.

RCI rebutted the alleged discrimination by offering proof of a legitimate reason for its actions: its reason for terminating Frausto was his violation of the attendance policy.

“It is well-settled in Texas that termination pursuant to the uniform enforcement of a reasonable absence-control policy does not constitute retaliatory discharge.” (Tex. Dep’t of Family v. Parra).

RCI provided proof that its “regular course of action and policy” was to terminate an employee for violation of its attendance policy, which required the employee notify RCI in advance of their absence or provide an emergency excuse.

Frausto did not notify RCI of his absences for almost two weeks, nor did he provide proof of an emergency. Thus, RCI’s evidence proved that it uniformly enforced its absence-control policy.

As for proof of an adverse employment action, Frausto’s complaint was that RCI did not provide him transportation to the light duty work location. There is no authority supporting the conclusion that RCI’s failure to provide transportation to/from the worksite constitutes an adverse action.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment and ruled in favor of RCI.