Welcome to Labor of Law. Glassdoor's lawyers are fighting anew, in the Texas Supreme Court, to protect the anonymity of its online forum users, and the company's got a lot of friends-of-court backing it. Plus: a quick take on the L&E perspective concerning natural disasters. Scroll down for our latest roundup Who Got the Work, including a rare legal-fee petition from the D.C. firm Williams & Connolly—on the plaintiffs' side.

➤➤I'm Erin Mulvaney in Washington, D.C., covering labor and employment from the Swamp to Silicon Valley. Follow this weekly newsletter for the latest analysis and happenings. If you have a story idea, feedback or just want to say hi, I'm at [email protected] and on Twitter @erinmulvaney.

|

Glassdoor Inc. Fights to Protect Anonymity

The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in the latest effort by Glassdoor Inc. to protect the anonymity of its users. Tech companies represented by Haynes and Boone backed Glassdoor as a friend-of-the-court, and Perkins Coie represented Indeed.com as an amicus party. “People who write anonymous employer reviews online have a constitutional right to do so,” the Perkins Coie team said in their brief.

Glassdoor has fought in courts around the country to protect the ability of users to post anonymous reviews about employment practices and job experiences. The Texas case confronts state discovery rules and the Texas Citizens Participation Act. Glassdoor lost in the lower courts.

On Wednesday, attorneys for Glassdoor and online clothing retailer Andra Group, represented by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, argued before the Texas Supreme Court over the scope of Texas provisions—Rule 202—for pre-suit discovery. Andra's lawyers argue the Glassdoor posts are defamatory, and they want to investigate further. (The company also denies any discriminatory employment practices, which were at the heart of some of the anonymous posts.)

Andra is looking into whether to file a defamation lawsuit against 10 anonymous users, who posted negative reviews on Glassdoor. The attorneys for Glassdoor contend that revealing the identities at an early stage is a violation of constitutional rights by limiting what can be said about workplace conditions.

Tech and internet companies including Reddit, Twitter and Yelp said in their amicus brief, filed by Laura Lee Prather, a partner in Dallas at Haynes and Boone: “Courts throughout the United States have repeatedly recognized the importance of preventing unnecessary attempts to compel disclosure of anonymous speakers' identities and its implications for the protection of citizens' First Amendment rights.”

Texas-based Indeed.com, which connects employers and workers, was represented by Ann Marie Painter, a partner with Perkins Coie. “A decision for Andra would “provide a roadmap to litigants from both inside and outside Texas on how to circumvent the protections for anonymous speech,” Painter wrote.

|

Hurricanes and Employment Law

After Hurricane Florence drenched the Carolinas, a woman was fired after she didn't show up for a shift at a restaurant where she worked, according to news reports. She had lost her power and the state warned people to stay off the roads.

In North Carolina, an at-will employment state, a private employer has wide latitude to fire employees. If a business is open, a company can demand workers show up for a shift. Natural disasters present personal and professional hardships for employers and employees.

“There's always something new our clients haven't anticipated,” says Howard Mavity, a Fisher Phillips partner in the firm's Atlanta office. Mavity founded and co-chairs the firm's workplace safety and catastrophe management practice group.

If an employee refuses to work, the employer would need to subsequently show the expectation of fear or risk was unreasonable. Issues such as paid time office, misclassification, paid leave and unemployment compensation almost always plague companies after storms, Mavity says.

Companies should devise strategies ahead of time to address essential personnel plans and how they will handle work shortages, or other big issues. “You can imagine the bad publicity, which would translate into legal issues if you mis-evaluated this risk,” he says.

|

Who Got the Work

>> A Western District of Pennsylvania judge this week awarded $2.2 million in legal fees to Williams & Connolly and the Employment Rights Group for their work advocating for oil field workers in an overtime lawsuit. Pittsburgh rates—not Washington, D.C.—applied. “We cannot simply accept Washington billing rates as being reasonable in Pittsburgh,” the judge wrote. Read the fee petition here.

>> Three former International Business Machines Corp. employees are suing the company in Manhattan federal district court. The class action claims IBM discriminated against them based on age when it fired them, tracking claims first published in a ProPublica investigation this year. Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan represents the workers. Read the complaint here. Bloomberg has more.

>> A former employee of the Washington Teachers' Union filed a federal lawsuit against his employer claiming he was fired from his role as an office assistant because he is gay. The worker, Barry Hobson, is represented by Brian Markovitz and Matthew Kreiser of Joseph, Greenwald & Laake.

>> Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings America was sued in Manhattan federal district court for alleged gender discrimination. New York-based attorneys Valli Kane & Vagnini filed the suit for the former acting general counsel and chief compliance officer at Mitsubishi Chemical. My colleague Kristen Rasmussen has more here.

|

Around the Water Cooler

>> Connie Bertram has left Proskauer Rose, the firm she sued for gender discrimination, to join Polsinelli as a shareholder in Washington. Last month Bertram resolved her lawsuit against Proskauer, where she led the firm's labor and employment practice. [The American Lawyer]

>> The NLRB's begun the log slog of rulemaking on joint-employer. Here are some considerations as the process gets underway. Chairman John Ring (above) says notice-and-comment will be the best vehicle to fully consider all views. [NLJ]

>> The latest claims against Facebook's advertising platform says companies in male-dominated industries are violating civil rights laws by excluding women from job advertisements. Outten & Golden and the American Civil Liberties Union filed charges with the EEOC. [The Recorder]

>> What happens when gig workers become employees? Lessons can be learned from the cannabis industry in California, where a debate over classification is currently raging. [The Atlantic]

>> Peter Robb, Trump's NLRB general counsel, says an Obama-era ruling that allowed workers to organize using work email systems should be overturned. [Law 360]

>> Uber has a complex relationship with diversity. Problems and issues still plague the ride-hailing company. [Tech Crunch]