Opinion ID: 895233
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Incompatibility of Statutory and Common-Law Causes of Action

Text: On this record, Williams' exclusive remedy against Waffle House is her statutory harassment claim. We have recognized that the legislative creation of a statutory remedy is not presumed to displace common-law remedies. To the contrary, abrogation of common-law claims is disfavored. [13] However, we will construe the enactment of a statutory cause of action as abrogating a common-law claim if there exists a clear repugnance between the two causes of action. [14] The issue before us is not whether Williams has a cause of action for battery against Davis, her coworker. Although trivial, everyday physical contacts do not necessarily result in a battery, [15] offensive contacts, or those which are contrary to all good manners, need not be tolerated. [16] Hence, [t]aking indecent liberties with a person is of course a battery. [17] Neither side questions the jury's finding that Davis assaulted Williams. The issue before us, however, is not whether Williams has a viable tort claim against a coworker. The issue is whether a common-law negligence action should lie against her employer for allowing the coworker's tortious or criminal conduct to occur, or whether, instead, a statutory regime comprehensively addressing employer-employee relations in this context should exclusively govern. We have recognized generally that employers have a duty to use ordinary care in providing a safe work place. [18] However, Texas courts have also held that the exclusive statutory workers' compensation scheme sometimes provides the remedy against an employer for the assault on [19] or sexual harassment of [20] an employee. Today's question is whether employer liability for unwanted sexual touching by a coworker (simple assault under Texas law given its offensive or provocative nature) is limited to a tailored TCHRA scheme that specifically covers employer liability for sexual harassment. We think the answer should be yes. Davis did not cause damage to the physical structure of the body that would fall within the workers' compensation definition of injury. [21] His conduct was assaultive because of the sexually offensive and provocative nature of his verbal and physical contacts with Williams. Williams could have and did pursue a TCHRA sexual-harassment claim for this behavior. Her common-law claim for negligent supervision and retention was predicated on the same conduct that underlay her TCHRA claim. As Williams acknowledges in her brief: The offensive threats and offensive touching were both an assault and sexual harassment, as found by the jury. A common-law claim for sexual harassment does not exist under Texas law. [22] However, a statutory harassment claim exists under the TCHRA. One express purpose of the state Act is to provide for the execution of the policies of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its subsequent amendments. [23] Sexual harassment is a recognized cause of action under Title VII and the TCHRA, [24] and Texas courts look to analogous federal law in applying the state Act. [25] There are two general types of sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile work environment. [26] Williams alleged the latter. Like the workers' compensation scheme, a statutory claim of sexual harassment encompasses a unique set of substantive rules and procedures. Williams obtained favorable jury findings on her TCHRA claim, but elected to recover on her common-law claim. She argues she should be able recover for negligent supervision and retention by Waffle House since she proved an underlying assault by Davis and met the other elements of the common-law cause of action. [27] But allowing Williams to recover on her tort claim would collide with the elaborately crafted statutory scheme, a scheme that, as with the workers' compensation regime, [28] incorporates a legislative attempt to balance various interests and concerns of employees and employers. The differences between a general common-law claim for negligence and a specific statutory claim for harassment are manifold: Administrative Review. Unlike a common-law negligence action, a TCHRA action requires an exhaustion of administrative remedies that begins by filing a complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission civil rights division (Commission). [29] Alternative dispute resolution is encouraged to resolve disputes arising under the TCHRA, [30] and the Commission and must endeavor to eliminate the alleged unlawful employment practice by informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion. [31] These procedures are an essential feature of the statutory framework, as we explained in Schroeder v. Texas Iron Works, Inc .: Construing the CHRA to require exhaustion is consistent with its purpose to provide for the execution of the policies embodied in Title VII. Those policies include administrative procedures involving informal conference, conciliation and persuasion, as well as judicial review of administrative action. Another important policy of Title VII is exhaustion of administrative remedies prior to litigation. [32] The administrative phase also requires the Commission to investigate the employee's complaint and make an initial determination as to whether a violation of law occurred. [33] These extensive investigation and resolution procedures are designed to favor conciliation over litigation.... [34] This meticulous legislative design is circumvented when a plaintiff brings a common-law cause of action for conduct that is actionable under the TCHRA. Limitations. The common-law and statutory causes of action both have a two-year statute of limitations, but the timetable under the two regimes is different in two respects. First, a TCHRA complainant must first bring an administrative complaint within 180 days of the date the alleged unlawful practice occurred. [35] Second, the two-year period for bringing a court action under the TCHRA runs from the date the administrative complaint is filed, [36] while the general statute of limitations applicable to personal-injury actions requires that suit be brought not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. [37] Substantive Elements of Claim. To make out a statutory sexual-harassment claim, the employee must prove more than that she found the harassment offensive. The TCHRA contemplates discrimination affecting the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. [38] Williams alleged and obtained a jury finding that she was constructively discharged. A constructive discharge qualifies as an adverse personnel action under the TCHRA, but requires proof that the employer made the working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person would feel compelled to resign. [39] Alternatively, the plaintiff can show that she remained in her position and endured a hostile work environment, but must show discriminatory conduct sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment. [40] An abusive environment can arise [w]hen the workplace is permeated with `discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.' [41] Courts look to all the circumstances in determining whether a hostile work environment exists, including the frequency of the discriminatory conduct and whether it unreasonably interfered with the employee's work performance. [42] All of the sexual hostile environment cases decided by the [United States] Supreme Court have involved patterns or allegations of extensive, longlasting, unredressed, and uninhibited sexual threats or conduct that permeated the plaintiffs' work environment. [43] Accordingly, single incidents should not be viewed in isolation because it is the cumulative effect of all offensive behavior that creates the work environment. [44] In contrast, the jury in this case could find, under the charge given, negligent supervision or retention by Waffle House if it found, among other elements, an underlying assault by Davis requiring no more than a physical contact that Davis knew would be regarded as offensive or provocative. The jury was not required to find that Davis' assault created a hostile work environment or imposed such intolerable conditions that a reasonable person would feel compelled to quit. Affirmative Defense. Courts have developed unique standards for the employer's response to a statutory sexual-harassment complaint: For example, federal and Texas courts have recognized an affirmative defense available to employers facing hostile work environment claims when the employer (1) exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly the harassing behavior and (2) the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise. [45] Remedies. The remedies available under the TCHRA are unique. The Act provides for injunctive remedies with no common-law counterpart, such as affirmative injunctive relief requiring the employee to be promoted, restoring union membership, and requiring on-the-job training. [46] Compensatory and punitive damages are available, but these damages are capped at relatively modest amounts that vary with the number of employees. The cap for the sum of compensatory and punitive damages under Act ranges from $50,000 for employers with fewer than 101 employees to $300,000 for employers with more than 500 employees. [47] The compensatory and punitive damages awarded to Williams, $850,000, well exceeded the maximum of $300,000 in combined compensatory and punitive damages available under the TCHRA in suits against the largest employers. Under the Act, the jury's award of past compensatory damages of $400,000 alone exceeded the statutory cap, making punitive damages unavailable to Williams under the statute. [48] In sum, the law governing statutory sexual harassment involves a unique set of standards and procedures. If Williams' common-law claim for negligent supervision and retention is allowed to coexist with the statutory claim, the panoply of special rules applicable to TCHRA claims could be circumvented in any case where the alleged sexual harassment included even the slightest physical contact. In any such case, the plaintiff could claim that a physical contact, even if not actionable as statutory sexual harassment, and even if not normally actionable as a common-law battery, [49] was offensive or provocative because it occurred in the context and course of the coworker's sexual harassment of the plaintiff. The statutory requirements of exhaustion of administrative remedies and the purposes behind the administrative phase of proceedings, the relatively short statute of limitations, the limits on compensatory and punitive damages, the requirement that the plaintiff prove an abusive working environment, and all other special rules and procedures governing the statutory sexual-harassment claim could be evaded in any case where any physical contact between the plaintiff and the coworker occurred.