Michele L. Maryott

Maryott scored a big victory in February in a landmark case involving a company’s right to classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees. U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s judgment in favor of Maryott’s client GrubHub Inc., followed a six-day trial that included intense cross-examination of the plaintiff by Maryott in which she exposed the fact that he’d met with his lawyer prior to working for GrubHub, and that he’d filed similar complaints against a competitor. Corley’s judgment deemed the plaintiff untrustworthy, citing his dishonest conduct and incredible testimony.

Maryott also cross-examined the plaintiff’s other fact witness without a previous deposition, and she presented the closing argument. She worked to connect the plaintiff’s credibility problem to the facts of the case by showing the plaintiff was essentially trying to game the system. Lawson v. GrubHub, Inc., CV15-05128 (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 9, 2015).

The case is expected to affect other misclassification lawsuits against on-demand companies, including Uber Technologies Inc. and DoorDash Inc. For Maryott, it’s a personal favorite.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said.

Maryott’s other recent victories include resolving a gender pay discrimination class action lawsuit in the Western District of North Carolina that had been filed against Family Dollar Stores Inc. Family Dollar hired Gibson Dunn in October 2016 after a judge certified a nationwide class of more than 30,000 former and current female employees and after the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied the company’s petition for review. As co-counsel, Maryott resolved the case during court-ordered mediation. Scott v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., CV08-540 (W.D. N.C., filed Nov. 24, 2008).

Maryott also recently settled a wage and hour class action on behalf of Sunrise Senior Living in a dispute over final wage payments. Her work in that case included leading a team that secured removal of the case to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act and defeating the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case back to superior court. The case recently settled. Johnson v. Sunrise Senior Living Management, Inc., CV16-00443 (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 20, 2016).

Maryott said she enjoys helping the companies she represents tell their stories.

“I’ve had the pleasure of representing a lot of companies who I believe have been wrongly accused, and we’ve proven that in many cases,” she said. “For me, it’s putting together that story, doing the quasi-detective work to try to understand what really happened here.”

— Meghann M. Cuniff