Texas Employees Can Bring Tort Claims Against Coworkers (2)

Texas’ anti-discrimination law allows employees to pursue defamation and fraud common-law tort claims against coworkers, even if those claims arise from the same workplace bias allegations against their employer, the state’s high court ruled.

Common-law cause of action exists for employees in Texas when individual tort claims are related to the same workplace discrimination allegations against the employer in the underlying case, the justices held Friday in a lawsuit from Southern Methodist University law professor Cheryl Butler who accused SMU and its employees of discriminating and retaliating against her by denying her tenure application.

Butler’s suit claimed violations of the ...