Jury room. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Lawyers from four Houston trial firms were on separate sides of a recent trial. But now they are jointly representing a teenage alternate juror who was fired during his jury duty.

The juror, Zachary White, filed a petition Friday in state district court in Houston, alleging that Mercedes-Benz of The Woodlands fired him on Feb. 25 for failing to show up on Mondays and Saturdays for “scheduled shifts outside of the jury duty schedule.” White alleges in the petition, however, that he was “not officially scheduled” for work on those Mondays and Saturdays while he was on the jury.

The firms representing White are Terry & Thweatt; Berg Plummer Johnson & Raval; Pierce & O'Neill; and Nathan Sommers Jacobs.

White, a 19-year-old who graduated from high school in 2018, seeks up to $200,000 in damages, but no attorney fees because the lawyers are representing him pro bono.

He also isn't looking for reinstatement in his job “because understandably, he does not wish to return to work for an employer who dishonors jury service by firing employees for simply fulfilling their civic duty and serving on a jury.”

In an email, Joe Drago, general manager of Mercedes-Benz of The Woodlands, declined to comment.

Geoffrey Berg, a partner at Berg Plummer Johnson & Raval in Houston.

Geoffrey Berg, a partner in Berg Plummer, said that 133rd District Judge Jaclanel McFarland informed the lawyers on the day she delivered instructions to the jury in the underlying suit that White had lost his job, apparently because of his jury service.

Berg said Lee Thweatt, a partner in Terry & Thweatt, had already informed the judge's trial coordinator that he would represent the juror pro bono, and “everybody agreed” to join that team.

Berg, Thweatt and Matthew Davis, an associate at Nathan Sommers who worked with partner George Gibson on the underlying lawsuit, each said they have never in the past been involved in litigation in which a juror lost a job during trial.

White alleges in White v. Dream Motors that he had been working at the service department of the dealership full time since October 2018, making $12 an hour. He received a jury summons in early 2019, and his supervisor “encouraged” him to ignore the jury summons, the petition said.

However, White, the son of a detective, reported for jury service on Feb. 5, and two days later was selected as an alternative juror in a commercial dispute in McFarland's court.

White alleges he was in the jury box every Tuesday through Friday, as McFarland scheduled the trial, until the suit went to the jury on Feb. 28.

However, on Feb. 25, according to the petition, White received a letter from the human resources department of the automobile dealership, terminating him “due to job abandonment.”

In the letter, which is reproduced in the petition, White's employer alleges that he had agreed to work on Mondays and Saturdays during his jury service, but had not shown up for work since Monday, Feb. 11, and those absences were not approved.

But White alleges in the petition that is it “simply untrue” he failed to show up for work on those days because he was “not officially scheduled for work on any other days after Feb. 11 by his supervisor.”

Additionally, White alleges that the HR director told him he would be paid wages for the time he was serving on the jury, but that was an “empty gesture,” since his last paycheck did not include wages for that time.

White alleges his employer violated the Jurors Right to Reemployment Act, a Texas law that prohibits employers from firing full-time employees because of jury service.

White seeks damages of one to five years' wages. The petition said he filed the suit to enforce the law, and to “send a message about the importance of jury service to all employers in Texas who may think incorrectly that they too can fire employees for simply serving on a jury.”

White said in the petition that he is seeking a new job with “an employer who respects and follows the law.”

Update: In a press release on Wednesday, Mercedes-Benz of The Woodlands said White's allegations are “categorically false.” The company said White was not terminated because of jury service, but because he had agreed to work on Mondays and Saturdays during his Tuesday-Friday jury service, and failed to do so.