§ 122.0022.Contempt

The chapter’s third response, and the fastest of the three.

In addition to and without limiting any other sanction or remedy available under the chapter or other law, a court may punish by contempt an employer who terminates, threatens to terminate, penalizes, or threatens to penalize an employee because the employee performs jury or grand jury duty.

The conduct described here is wider than either text of the prohibition. It reaches penalizing and threatening to penalize, which covers a demotion, a lost shift, or a withheld bonus — consequences short of dismissal that neither version of Section 122.001 names in those terms.

The mechanism is what makes this useful. Contempt is exercised by the court in the proceeding at hand, so a judge whose own juror reports being threatened can act at once, without a separate lawsuit or a prosecution.

The timing is the point. A civil claim takes years and a prosecution needs a prosecutor; a juror under pressure this week needs neither.

The court is protecting its own process. Contempt exists to secure the administration of justice, and an employer interfering with a summons is interfering with the court.

"In addition to and without limiting" makes the cumulative intent explicit. Contempt does not displace the civil claim or the offense, and using one does not spend the others.

Note that the section names the employer, so the contempt runs against the entity or person responsible rather than against an employee who passed on the instruction.