Michele L. Maryott

Maryott won a major victory for GrubHub Inc. and companies with similar business models in February when she became the first attorney to take a worker misclassification case involving the gig economy to trial and emerge victorious.

Maryott convinced Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in a bench trial that the plaintiff, a former GrubHub driver, signed documents agreeing he would be an independent contractor, not an employee and generally conducted himself in an untrustworthy manner.

It was a case where both sides tried to attack the character of the litigant across the table. Maryott said she didn’t let herself get distracted by the mud the other side was slinging at her client.

“Even though they went on the attack we didn’t think that much of it,” she said. “We focused on the positive story we had to tell, knowing that if we told that story right that would go a long way toward prevailing in the case.”

Maryott said getting evidence into the record about the plaintiff’s attempts to find weaknesses in the GrubHub app that would allow him to get paid for doing the most minimal amount of work was also key.

“He gamed the system; we uncovered that,” she said. “We had to find a way to get that across and make it relevant to the court.”

She also demonstrated that the plaintiff created a fake identity and lied about the fact that he had previously worked for GrubHub when he got kicked off the service and wanted to find a way back in.

But Theane D. Evangelis, co-counsel in the case and fellow Gibson Dunn partner, said the real key to the case was Maryott’s performance.

“She was our secret weapon in the Grubhub trial,” Evangelis said. “Her cross-examination really destroyed the plaintiff’s case.”

In April, a defense team representing Uber Technologies Inc. followed the same blueprint to win a federal case in Philadelphia. Maryott said it was gratifying to know other attorneys were emulating her strategy.

“I was pleased to see that and the hope is that more courts will dive in and look at these issues closely in the way that Judge Corley did and start to reach a growing consensus.”

— Joshua Sebold