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This paper is concerned with the time-step condition of commonly-used linearized semi-implicit schemes for nonlinear parabolic PDEs with Galerkin finite element approximations. In particular, we study the time-dependent nonlinear Joule heating equations. We present optimal error estimates of the semi-implicit Euler scheme in both the L2 norm and the H1 norm without any time-step restriction. Theoretical analysis is based on a new splitting of error function and precise analysis of a corresponding time-discrete system. The method used in this paper is appli- cable for more general nonlinear parabolic systems and many other linearized (semi)-implicit time discretizations for which previous works often require certain restriction on the time-step size τ. © 2013 Institute for Scientific Computing and Information.