Source: https://www.tdcaa.com/journal/slapp-back-against-frivolous-suits-from-former-employees/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 01:10:31+00:00

Document:
The public duties of county personnel now intersect with a relatively new statute in Texas: The Texas Citizens Participation Act, or TCPA. This statute was intended to protect citizens from abusive lawsuits when they address certain activities considered key to democracy, but lately, employers are using it to dismiss suits from former employees. The next time your office receives notification of such a lawsuit, TCPA may be a potential defense.
The TCPA provides litigants with a mechanism for quickly dismissing these retaliatory lawsuits, staying discovery, and awarding these citizens attorney’s fees and costs upon dismissal of the suit.5 Additionally, if the trial court overrules the litigant’s motion to dismiss pursuant to TCPA, the litigant is entitled to an interlocutory appeal. Further, the court may award sanctions against the party who brought the legal action.
The TCPA has been broadly and successfully used as a defense in a variety of cases not originally envisioned;6 most important to those of us in prosecutor offices is the trend of employers using the TCPA as a defense against lawsuits brought by former employees whose job duties fall into the category of a public concern.
In ExxonMobil Pipeline Company v. Coleman, a former employee sued his employer and supervisors for defamation, civil conspiracy, and other torts alleging his supervisors made false statements to his employer about him.7 ExxonMobil moved for dismissal of the lawsuit asserting the TCPA as a defense. The case went to the Supreme Court of Texas, which held that the TCPA defense applied to the statements by the supervisor and investigator about the employee’s failure to record the volume of petroleum products and additives in the storage tanks as the risk of an oil spill is a matter of public concern. Specifically, the Court held the recording of the oil volume is a process completed “to reduce the potential environmental, health, safety, and economic risks associated with noxious and flammable chemicals overfilling and spilling onto the ground.”8 The Supreme Court further stated that communications made in connection with environmental, health, safety, and economic concerns fall under the TCPA.
ExxonMobil and Memorial Hermann held that statements made by supervisors about their employees’ performance of duties transform personnel matters into matters of “public concern.” Consequently, these matters would be subject to similar dismissals in the event government employees filed suits based on statements made by their employers about them or their job performance.
It is clear public employees are treated differently from private employees, but private employers’ ever-expanding use of the TCPA defense has implications for government employers who are sued by former employees. Almost every county employee’s duties may fall into the category of a “public concern,” including law enforcement officers, prosecutors, investigators, deputy district and county clerks, court coordinators, treasurers, and tax assessors. Also, the holding in Brady v. Klentzman that statements regarding the conduct of a deputy and his family fall into the definition of a “matter of public concern” may affect one’s analysis of employment-related issues with deputies and other law enforcement categories of employees.
While TCPA will not be applicable to every case, the potential for its use as a defense to suit from former employees is a trend governmental practitioners should recognize and consider when they are analyzing new litigation filed against them.
1 These 28 states include Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, District of Columbia and Guam. The Media Law Resource Center, Anti-SLAPP Statutes and Commentary, http://www.medialaw.org/topics-page/anti-slapp (last visited Apr. 4, 2018).
2 Id.; House Comm. on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence, Bill Analysis, Tex. H.B. 2973, 82nd Leg., R.S. (2011).
3 Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §27.001(1) states that communication includes the making or submitting or a statement or document in any form or medium, including oral, visual, written, audiovisual, or electronic.
4 Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §27.001(7).
5 Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§27.001–27.011.
6 Watson v. Hardman, 497 S.W.3d 601, 603 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2016, no pet.) (defamation); Pena v. Perel, 417 S.W.3d 552 (Tex. App.—E l Paso 2013, no pet.) (slander and defamation); KTRK Television, Inc. v. Robinson, 409 S.W.3d 682, 686 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2013, pet. denied) (defamation); Avila v. Larrea, 394 S.W.3d 646, 649 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, pet. denied) (defamation); Ramsey v. Lynch, No. 10-12-00198-CV, 2013 WL 1846886, at *1 (Tex. App.—Waco May 2, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.) (defamation).
7 ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. v. Coleman, 512 S.W.3d 895 (Tex. 2017).
9 ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. v. Coleman, 464 S.W.3d 841, 846 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2015), rev’d, 512 S.W.3d 895 (Tex. 2017).
10 ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. v. Coleman, 512 S.W.3d 895, 900 (Tex. 2017).
11 Mem’l Hermann Health Sys. V. Khalil, No. 01-16-00512-CV, 2017 WL 3389645, at *5 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Aug. 8, 2017, pet. denied) (anesthesiologist sued health care system for defamation, tortious interference with contract, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and age discrimination following corrective action employment plan and failure to recredential anesthesiologist); Lippincott v. Whisenhunt, 462 S.W. 3d 507 (Tex. 2015) (nurse anesthetist brought action against administers at medical facility for allegedly defamatory emails).
12 Mem’l Hermann Health Sys., 2017 WL 3389645, at *5 (internal citations omitted).
13 Brady v. Klentzman, 515 S.W.3d 878 (Tex. 2017), reh’g denied (June 2, 2017).
16 Watson v. Hardman, 497 S.W.3d 601, 603 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2016, no pet.) (defamation); Pena v. Perel, 417 S.W.3d 552 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2013, no pet.) (slander and defamation); KTRK Television, Inc. v. Robinson, 409 S.W.3d 682, 686 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2013, pet. denied) (defamation); Avila v. Larrea, 394 S.W.3d 646, 649 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, pet. denied) (defamation); Ramsey v. Lynch, No. 10-12-00198-CV, 2013 WL 1846886, at *1 (Tex. App.—Waco May 2, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.) (defamation).
17 Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §27.005; ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., 512 S.W.3d at 898; In re Lipsky, 460 S.W.3d 579, 586 (Tex. 2015).
18 Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §27.001.
19 Id. §27.005(c); ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., 512 S.W.3d at 899.

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