September 5th, 2026
Posted By
Kerry V. O’Brien

During the week of August 24, 2026, the O'Brien Law Firm settled six cases for six deserving clients who were owed unpaid commissions and bonuses.

Three of the firm's clients were former field inspectors for Global Estimating Services, Inc., an affiliate of ARS Global Emergency Management. Since October 2024, the O'Brien Law Firm has represented and settled the unpaid bonus claims, and in many cases the unpaid overtime pay claims, of 26 former GES field inspectors and supervisors. In each case, the employee had worked under an agreement that required disputes to take place in Harris County, Texas. Like many of their former coworkers, these three field inspectors lived in another part of the country. They retained the Texas-based O'Brien Law Firm due to the firm's experience and success in suing GES and ARS in the prior cases. Kerry O'Brien was able to get the cases resolved to his clients' satisfaction and without these clients having to give their depositions or travel to Texas. Their case was Civil Action No. 4:25−cv−03689, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

On Friday, August 28, O'Brien was able to get three more cases settled for happy clients who formerly worked for the consumer credit bureau behemoth Equifax. In cases ongoing in three separate courts, these three former sales representatives were suing Equifax for unpaid sales commissions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Equifax claimed that its commission plan required an employee to be employed on the date that the commission is to be paid in order to officially "earn" the commission. Equifax had terminated each of these employees without cause as the company reduced its sales staff. Equifax then sought to keep those hundreds of thousands of dollars of commissions that O'Brien's clients would have otherwise been paid from the upcoming revenue stream from their closed sales. The O'Brien Law Firm came in and argued that the Equifax commission plan did not allow Equifax to keep their commissions post-employment. Ultimately, the parties settled the cases over a 9-hour mediation conducted by mediator Tom Nesbitt of Austin. Those cases were Civil Action Nos. 4:24-cv-02555 and 4:24-cv-3526 in the federal court for the Southern District of Texas, and Cause No. 23DCV341488 in the 146th Judicial District Court of Bell County, Texas.

The frustrating thing for O'Brien is the notion that companies can incentivize the work of a sales employee with promises of commissions, only to terminate them and keep their commission earnings anyway. With just one difficult extra sentence in a commission plan, Texas law can support these types of abusive practices by employers. It can seem like the "house" - meaning, the company - always wins. However, O'Brien uses his extensive experience with and knowledge of employee contract law to find any opportunity whenever possible to work around these company-friendly plan terms and get the firm's clients paid for their sales success and hard work.