TexasCHLforum.com

frankie_the_yankee wrote:
OK. How about this? Buy a ladder lately? Some guy steps on the paint can shelf, falls down, sues the ladder company for makng an "unsafe" product, and wins. So now ladders all have stickers on these shelves that say, "This is not a step".

The ladder company did not break any laws when they put the ladders on the market. No one forced the guy to buy one. And no one made him step on the paint can shelf. Yet he wins the suit anyway.

(Note: I don't know if a suit like this wa ever filed, but the ladder companies seem to be concerned enough about it to put these stickers, along with many, many others, on every ladder they sell.)

That's a fine example. Now that you're using a valid point of comparison, I'll quit being pedantic and leave you alone. For this thread anyway.

Renegade wrote: It has everything to do with that, as that is what I commented on. The expectation of winning such a lawsuit, which goes RIGHT to what a jury might decide. Your statement was:

You can't really expect to win a liability suit where you are showing up to a place voluntarily and are disarmed voluntarily.

First let's clear something up....I never said that.

Renegade wrote: I disagree. I do think you can expect to win such a lawsuit. I KNOW of several cases where folks have won such lawsuits.

I'm sure it has happened. I also know of a guy who won a lawsuit when he decided to try and trim his hedges with his lawnmower, intentionally defeated the safety features, and ended up chopping his hand off. The plural of anecdote isn't data, as the saying goes.

Renegade wrote: In fact, I would be surprised if you could name any workplace shooting in the last 20 years or so where the unarmed victims did not received compensation in one form or another from the company.

That's likely true, but it's also highly likely that few, if *any* of those individuals won compensation in court. It's far more likely that the potentially liable insurance companies settled with them. That's the nature of the system, and it doesn't prove much of anything.

Renegade wrote: If attorneys did not think they could win these types of cases, they would not file them and take them on contingency. Obviously they know something.

Typically, they know that it's less risk for an insurance company to settle, and that insurance companies like to avoid risk.

Could some of these folks win in court? Sure. I was never out to show that they couldn't. My only point in this whole long thread which I've only recently joined is that it's fallacy to attempt to use examples of liability in cases where laws are being broken to liability when everything is entirely legitimate. There are very different legal standards in play.


EDIT: I *did* have another point way earlier in the thread that I had forgotten about, but that was weeks ago and I'm tired of it and it's irrelevant to this particular discussion anyhoo.

Renegade wrote: Never served on a jury that actually decides civil suits eh? Try it if selected sometime, you will be shocked what goes into deciding who gets what, how much and why. It is an eye-opener.

It has nothing to do with what a jury might decide. The fact remains that there's a fundamental difference between a situation where an employer is breaking the law and it directly leads to injury, and a situation where an employer's legal policy may indirectly be associated with and blamed in principle for injury. Pointing at the former and claiming you'll get the same results given the latter and that they're really the same because injury occurred simply doesn't make sense.

Renegade wrote:

Xander wrote:
See my post above.

Yes, I know there are laws. We are talking about the logic vs. reality.

No, we're now talking about apples vs. oranges. Policy enforcement is not equivalent to violation of federal anti-discrimination law.

Renegade wrote:

frankie_the_yankee wrote: If your argument were valid there would be no basis for harrassment and/or workplace safety laws. After all, if the workplace was unpleasant or unsafe, you could simply leave, right?

Well said. Today's Headline:

A FEDERAL JURY HAS DECIDED THAT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN MUST PAY $11.6 MILLION IN DAMAGES TO FORMER KNICKS EXECUTIVE IN A SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT

She came to work voluntarily every day.

See my post above.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: If your argument were valid there would be no basis for harrassment and/or workplace safety laws. After all, if the workplace was unpleasant or unsafe, you could simply leave, right?

That is not a valid comparison. There are laws that protect workers from harassment and certain (not all!) unsafe environments. A better example would be that nothing in the law, for instance, prevents a taxi cab company from sending a driver into a known bad part of town to pick up a fare. If you don't like driving into bad parts of town at night, your legal option is to quit, or refuse and be fired.

If you want a comparison for the potential recourse against a company for a policy that effects you negatively, make it the actions against companies for other matters of policy, not actions taken when laws were broken.

You certainly *can* sue to have policies rescinded, or when you've been injured because of a policy, but mudding the waters by attempting to compare these situations with situations where laws were broken only confuses the issue.

seamusTX wrote: IMHO, people overthink this issue. Few companies are going to have you arrested. Every arrest is on the police blotter, and the news services check it. The company would risk having news stories about an employee being arrested with a gun. If it's a walk-in business like a retail store, that could affect sales.

- Jim

I agree that it's highly unlikely that you would be arrested. I also agree that most company "no guns" policies don't meet the §30.06 requirements for notification, and are not legally valid. I do not agree that it's ok to tell people that they can't be arrested, only fired, unless there's a §30.06 sign. The sign is only one of several ways that company can notify employees that carrying a handgun on premises is illegal.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: So you signed a form saying you've read it. So what? Maybe you missed that part. Who knows?

Doesn't matter. Same as as §30.06 sign. They don't have to prove that you saw it and ignored it. They just have to have a sign that meets the requirements. If they have a handbook with a policy that meets the §30.06 written notification requirement, and you sign a statement saying that you've read it, any reasonable person is going to consider that to be adequate notification. All the statute requires is that you be given a document with the required language. Nowhere does it require that the property owner prove that you read those specific words.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: So what did they say when they gave you VERBAL notification?

Again...The point is that they *could*. That is clear from the statute. If they can convince a cop that you were given verbal notice, he isn't going to put up with you trying to play lawyer right there in front of him. He's going to haul you off, and you may be unpleasantly surprised in court if they can, in fact, give adequate evidence that you were notified.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: Also, does the manual say people would be prosecuted for tresspass if they carried, or that it was merely cause for termination?

In this hypothetical case the manual has the language required for written notification that is specified in §30.06(c)(3)(A).

frankie_the_yankee wrote:
Possibly. But they would have to PROVE that they so informed you. Just saying that they did it would not be enough. For example, just what did they say, EXACTLY?

That's easy to do. The companies that I've worked for who've given me an employee handbook have, without exception, made me sign a form stating that I'd read it. All they'd have to do to prove I'd been informed would be to pull that form out of my file.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: Finally, if anyone has ever been prosecuted in TX under these circumstances I would like to know about it.

I doubt they have been. I'd certainly be willing to agree that it's an unlikely scenario, but I also don't want anyone to be confused into thinking that the *only* way they could ever possibly be prosecuted for criminal trespass by a license holder is if the building is posted with a §30.06 sign, and be lulled into ignoring other potentially legally valid notifications.

frankie_the_yankee wrote: What I will never understand is why so many people seem to have trouble with the idea that an employer-mandated "no guns" policy HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PENAL CODE OR WITH ANYONE'S "RIGHTS". If the employer says "wear red pants" you wear red pants if you want to work there.

They are not going to have you arrested if you don't wear red pants. They will simply fire you.

Likewise with "no guns" policies. If not posted, you commit no crime by carrying a gun. You are just BREAKING THE RULES and can expect to be fired if found out.

As pointed out above though, that's not entirely true, in the sense that there does not necessarily need to be a §30.06 compliant sign in order for you to be in violation of §30.06.

As I read it, if the employee handbook, or a handout received, say, in employee orientation contains the language specified by §30.06(c)(3)(A), you would be breaking the law by carrying a handgun at work, and you could be arrested and charged with criminal trespass by a license holder. Likewise if you are specifically verbally informed in an employee orientation that carrying handguns is prohibited, you would be violating §30.06 and subject to arrest and prosecution.

So, while a generic written "no guns" policy isn't legally enforceable, there are options other than a §30.06 sign that can put you squarely on the wrong side of the law.