It turns out that some of the country’s most exalted legal minds also have to deal with people getting mad online.
The second most influential court in the country is slated to decide whether it “likes” a National Labor Relations Board ruling that found workers can’t be fired for some social media posts critical of bosses.
The US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC is expected on Thursday to consider the case, according to Reuters.
The dispute was brought by three terminated San Francisco-based employees, after their retail chain employer dismissed them in 2010 for discussing workplace safety online. The three workers, all women, wanted their managers at a Bettie Page Clothing chain outlet to close an hour earlier, due to concerns about late night street harassment.
An administrative judge sided with the fired trio, claiming they were victimized by unfair labor practices. When the NLRB reviewed the case in April 2013, it said the terminations were in retaliation for speech protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
“The board ordered the store to reinstate all three employees and to give them back pay,” Law360 noted.
The employer, a Las-Vegas-based company called Design Technology Group, challenged the decision late in 2014. It is receiving support—at least the moral kind—from the National Federation of Independent Business: a right-wing corporate lobbying group most famous for bringing the case against Obamacare that wound up before SCOTUS.
“The decision will make it difficult to enforce civility and non-harassment workplace policies without exposing a business to a fact-intensive and expensive NLRB charge,” NFIB alleged in an amicus supporting the plaintiffs. “The decision will make it difficult for small businesses to protect their reputations in their community.”
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is widely seen as a venue for some of the most heated and important legal fights in the country, and as a staging ground for cases that are eventually adjudicated by the Supreme Court.
In Nov. 2013, as Republicans and Democrats fought over presidential nominees to the body, The Wall Street Journal described it as “a crucible for the regulatory state.”
“The appeals court has shaped enforcement of environmental, consumer-protection and antitrust law, and is likely to hear major cases in the next few years on greenhouse-gas restrictions and post-2008 financial regulation,” it reported.
The Washington Post echoed this assessment, noting around the same time that the court has “outsize importance in national legal disputes.”
“And for the past two decades, the DC appellate court has generally been considered favorable to business, skeptical of regulation and supportive of broad executive powers to wage war and ensure national security,” it said.
