A Beetle battle

Richardson – A former office manager who says she was fired from one of the region’s best-known Volkswagen dealerships because she had heart surgery has won the first round before a federal labor agency and may be entering unusual terrain in Dallas state district court.

Delores J. Edwards, 61, said she was called to the general manager’s office at The Volkswagen Store, now known as Boardwalk Volkswagen, and fired without notice on Jan. 26, 2001 – the same day Boardwalk was signing up employees for a new health plan. Edwards had worked at the dealership at 601 S. Central Expwy. since 2000, the year Boardwalk Transportation L.P. bought it and changed its name from Central Volkswagen.

Citing an office memo on health issues that warned Edwards had been a heart patient, she filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The panel ruled on Nov. 22 that Edwards had been wrongly fired because her employers regarded her as disabled. In an unusual move, Edward’s attorney decided to file the case in state rather than federal court. Instead, Thomas E. Shaw, Edward’s attorney, filed suit against the dealership in state court Dec. 2 under a chunk of Texas law that parallels federal job-protection codes. Shaw said he’s more comfortable trying cases in state court.

Boardwalk denies the allegations. Its attorney, Lynn Fielder, questions the venue. “In a nutshell, the EEOC ruling is totally irrelevant in state court,” he said. “Boardwalk came in … and brought all these employees with the former company on board and looked at them for 90 days and said, ‘We’ve got way too many people doing these jobs.’ ”