Ex-employee gets a new job in settlement

Conroe Courier

Friday May 14, 1993

Conroe, Texas 77301

Lawsuit resolved amiably

by GEOFF DRUSHEL

Courier Staff

A Conroe man has settled an employee discrimination lawsuit with a local fast food eatery just weeks before the case was slated to go to grail here in a state district court.

Wayne “Tex” Dickson, a former employee of the Taco Bell restaurant on North Frazier Street, will, as a result of the settlement, be rehired and relocated by the company’s Austin headquarters and will have is future college education paid for, in addition to receiving a lump-sum cash settlement.

The settlement also calls for the former Willis volunteer fireman to receive on-the-job training at his new job as well as an employee incentive package, and includes a pledge by the company to implement sensitivity training program for its employees on a corporate wide basis.

While attorneys involved in the settlement would not disclose specific dollar amounts because of a “secrecy agreement,” they said it totaled in the neighborhood of $250,000.

Dickson, 22, filed suit against the Frazier’s store’s manager and its Austin-based owners in the summer of 1991.  The suit alleged the manager and, in turn, the company discriminated against the man because of his disability and that the manager slandered and assaulted him in an episode that occurred in March 1991.

“In 20 years of practicing law, it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to really sit down and smoke the peace pipe with a major corporation like this.  And I commend them for the way they handled it, said Robert S. Bennett, one of two Houston attorneys who, along with Conroe attorney Guy E “Buddy” Hopkins, worked out the settlement with Austaco, the Austin-based owners of about 38 Taco Bell restaurants statewide, including the Conroe store.

"We see this as a guiding light resolution for the settlement of other disability discrimination lawsuits around the country,: said Bennett, a partner in the Houston law firm of Bennett, Broocks, Baker & Lange.

Austaco Inc. representative Joe Harris, meanwhile, said the company is “pleased” with the settlement.

“We’re looking at it very positively,” said Harris.  “We’re happy Tex is taken care of and feel good about the outcome.”

Dickson, currently enrolled as a senior at Conroe High school, said he plans to graduate before moving to Austin and will attend Austin Community College when he gets there, in addition to working in the Austaco corporate warehouse.  He said he will put the money in the bank.

“I guess you could say I’m a little overwhelmed by it, but I’m looking forward to going back to work,” he said.

Dickson was involved in an automobile crash in 1981 that left him partially paralyzed.  He has difficulty walking and only partial use of his left hand.

When Dickson went to work for Taco Bell in summer 1990, he worked for a manager he described as “nice and sensitive” to his condition.

But all of that changed, he said, in early 1991 when the manager was reassigned and a new manager took over the operation.

Dickson said the new manager, Christopher Kilian, who has since left the employment of Taco Bell to return to school, made numerous remarks to him about his disability and eventually physically assaulted him one afternoon in front of his co-workers and a number of customers.

"He would tell me things, like I should go work with people of my own kind, all those one-eye, one-armed, one-legged people” Dickson said, “He told me I should go work a library or some place like that.”

The March 1991 assault occurred when the manager became angry over the pace at which Dickson was operating the store’s cash register and grabbed him and shoved him from behind the counter as co-workers and customers looked on.

He said, “what’s your problem,” Dickson said. “And I told him my problem was that he had his hands on me.”

“I got mad,” he said “I felt real empty that a person would embarrass me like that in front of a bunch of people I knew.”

He did not return to work after that, despite attempts by the company to get him to come back, and file suit several months later.

The manager has denied making any statement about Dickson’s’ disability and did not remember ever assaulting the disabled man according to the attorneys involved.  Witnessed to both the statement and the attack, however, testified in dispositions that the incident occurred.

“Our company has always been dedicated to providing work opportunities for the disabled and will continue to comply with all legal standards." Dirk Dozier, chief executive officer for Austaco, said in a prepared statement “We particularly have extended our hand to working with employees like Tex with special concerns:

The trial had been set up for May 24 in state District Judge Olen Underwood’s 284^th District Court in Conroe.