Page:Cordúa Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB (19-60630) (2021) Opinion.pdf/5

 Shortly thereafter, on July 26, 2015, Ambroa fired Reichman for drinking during her shifts. Later that evening, Reichman sent Ambroa a series of text messages referencing her firing and denying allegations that she accessed confidential employee information for Ramirez. Ambroa immediately called Espinoza and forwarded him screenshots of the messages. Cordúa never contacted Reichman to ask about her messages.

Espinoza sent the photographs of these text conversations to Cordúa’s information technology department (“IT”) and asked them to determine whether any confidential employee records had been taken. Approximately two weeks later, IT informed Espinoza that it was “more than likely” that no records had been taken.

Cordúa did not discuss this investigation with Ramirez in July or August 2015. Espinoza testified that he did not reach out to Ramirez in August because Cordúa’s restaurants are very busy during that month due to Houston’s “Restaurant Week.”

Cordúa employees continued to join the collective action lawsuit in August and early September, including three additional Churrascos Sugar Land employees. As of September 1, 2015, nineteen employees had joined Ramirez’s lawsuit, each of whom was employed at one of the three restaurants where Ramirez was working or had recently worked.

On September 4, 2015, Espinoza summoned Ramirez to a one-on-one meeting at Churrascos Sugar Land. Espinoza began the meeting by telling Ramirez, “We understand you have a lawsuit against us.” Espinoza then stated to Ramirez that “[w]e respect your right to do that,” before explaining that he was investigating an alleged attempt to access confidential personnel records. Espinoza asked Ramirez a series of questions about his communications with Reichman, including whether he had texted Reichman about obtaining records, sent texts to Reichman about a flash drive, or