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Basic Capital Management8/9/2001
Justice FitzGerald
In this employment discrimination and retaliation case, Basic Capital Management, Inc., National Payroll Management, Inc. a/k/a National Payroll Management Company, Carmel Realty, Inc., d/b/a Carmel Property Management, Inc., their successors and assigns (collectively referred to as "Basic Capital") appeal a trial court's judgment following a bench trial, awarding Tong T. Phan damages in the amount of $106,468.92, plus prejudgment interest and attorney's fees. In its first three issues, Basic Capital contends (1) the trial court was without jurisdiction over Phan's lawsuit, because Phan failed to meet the jurisdictional prerequisite of filing his charge with the Texas Commission on Human Rights (TCHR); (2) the evidence is factually insufficient to support the trial court's findings of discrimination and retaliation; and (3) the trial court erred in entering its conclusions of law based on the erroneous findings of fact. In its final five issues, Basic Capital contends the trial court erred in (1) its award of backpay because the evidence showed Phan failed to mitigate his damages and Basic Capital sold the building in which Phan worked; (2) its method of calculating prejudgment interest; and (3) awarding attorney's fees because Phan should not have been the prevailing party. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court's judgment.
Relevant Facts
Beginning in January of 1982, Phan, a Vietnamese Asian, worked in the maintenance department at the Dallas Republic Bank Tower (Republic Tower). During the time Phan was employed at Republic Towers, several different management companies managed the facility. In December 1994, defendant Carmel Realty Management took over management of the building and became Phan's employer.
In 1989, Phan's supervisor, James Stone, promoted him to a position where he was responsible for taking care of the units and equipment in the HVAC/Maintenance department at Republic Tower. In 1994, when Basic Capital took over the management of the building, Phan was still reporting to James Stone, the chief engineer for the Tower. According to Phan, Stone subjected him to discriminatory treatment, including telling Phan he could not speak Vietnamese to a co-worker, that it is illegal to speak Vietnamese in the United States, and that he and the company would hire no more Vietnamese.
Phan reported these comments to Lyn Kruger, Basic Capital's human resource manager, along with a complaint that Stone and others in the maintenance department were committing time card fraud. As a result of Basic Capital's investigation into Phan's complaints, Basic Capital reprimanded Stone, and ordered him to apologize to Phan. After Stone made another racially insensitive remark to a different employee, Basic Capital fired him.
A few months later, Bill Maher, Stone's replacement, fired Phan. Phan testified Maher told him that Steve Anderson, Stone's friend and former boss, had ordered the termination because of Phan's complaints to Kruger.
Phan alleged that, although Basic Capital called the termination a "lay-off," he was the only employee laid off. He asserts that no one checked his qualifications, work experience, or history with the company before he was terminated, and that soon after his termination, Basic Capital advertised for and hired employees for the properties it managed, including Republic Tower.
Phan further testified that approximately ten days after he was fired, Phan met with some of the Basic Capital managers and informed them he wanted a job. According to Kruger, who was at the meeting, the managers made it clear to Phan that his termination was not perform
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