This is a photo of my trial team as they get ready to go to court today in an employment law trial against Conoco Phillips, the giant oil and gas company.
The employment law attorneys in this photo are Connor Throckmorton, Alexandra Okolie, and Edwin Villa. They handle discrimination and wrongful termination cases at our office, Coane and Associates, PLLC. Today’s trial in US District Court-Houston involves a claim for severance pay. Our client was terminated by ConocoPhillips and they claimed he was not entitled to severance pay, all the while they were letting others go and paying them severance in accordance with the company plan.
Defendants in the case include both the company and the Plan Administrators, Frank Alexander and Dan Mecham. Both Mecham and Alexander were sued because they were administrators of the Plan and were involved at one point in the decision to refuse severance pay to our client.
During the litigation of the case, there were depositions of human resource workers Caroline Churchill and Heather Sirdashney. It is alleged that these two human resource employees played a role in deciding whether to terminate our client with no severance or to allow him to get severance by laying him off. The company has backed their decision to terminate with no severance.
ConocoPhillips filed a motion for summary judgment to try to get the lawsuit dismissed, but the federal judge decided the case must go to trial and he refused to dismiss the case. It is expected that the case will last through Friday of this week.
For further information, contact Bruce Coane at [email protected] or at 713-850-0066.
