California Appellate Tracker

In re Grand Jury Subpoena (United States v. Glassdoor, Inc.)

December 4, 2017

A company that operates an employer-review website must cooperate with a grand jury subpoena unless there is evidence that the grand jury’s investigation is being conducted in bad faith.

Glassdoor operates a website that posts employees’ anonymous reviews of their employer. It posted 125 employee reviews of a health care company that an Arizona federal grand jury was investigating for possible False Claims Act and other violations. The grand jury subpoenaed Glassdoor to obtain the e-mail addresses of the anonymous employees responsible for the posts, thinking they might have valuable evidence regarding the employer’s allegedly illegal practices. Held, the district court properly enforced the subpoena. Such a subpoena should be enforced unless the subpoenaed party shows the grand jury investigation is being conducted in bad faith. See Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) 408 U.S. 665. Glassdoor had no evidence of bad faith, so the subpoena was properly enforced.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal (Tallman, J.); November 8, 2017; 2017 WL 5504965.

Subscribe to California Appellate Tracker

Thank you for your desire to subscribe to Severson & Werson’s Appellate Tracker Weblog. In order to subscribe, you must provide a valid name and e-mail address. This too will be retained on our server. When you push the “subscribe button”, we will send an electronic mail to the address that you provided asking you to confirm your subscription to our Weblog. By pushing the “subscribe button”, you represent and warrant that you are over the age of 18 years old, are the owner/authorized user of that e-mail address, and are entitled to receive e-mails at that address. Our weblog will retain your name and e-mail address on its server, or the server of its web host. However, we won’t share any of this information with anyone except the Firm’s employees and contractors, except under certain extraordinary circumstances described on our Privacy Policy and (About The Consumer Finance Blog/About the Appellate Tracker Weblog) Page. NOTICE AND AGREEMENT REGARDING E-MAILS AND CALLS/TEXT MESSAGES TO LAND-LINE AND WIRELESS TELEPHONES: By providing your contact information and confirming your subscription in response to the initial e-mail that we send you, you agree to receive e-mail messages from Severson & Werson from time-to-time and understand and agree that such messages are or may be sent by means of automated dialing technology. If you have your email forwarded to other electronic media, including text messages and cellular telephone by way of VoIP, internet, social media, or otherwise, you agree to receive my messages in that way. This may result in charges to you. Your agreement and consent also extend to any other agents, affiliates, or entities to whom our communications are forwarded. You agree that you will notify Severson & Werson in writing if you revoke this agreement and that your revocation will not be effective until you notify Severson & Werson in writing. You understand and agree that you will afford Severson & Werson a reasonable time to unsubscribe you from the website, that the ability to do so depends on Severson & Werson’s press of business and access to the weblog, and that you may still receive one or more emails or communications from weblog until we are able to unsubscribe you.

I Agree

Effective, Experienced, Exceptional.

California Appellate Tracker

In re Grand Jury Subpoena (United States v. Glassdoor, Inc.)

Categories

San Francisco

Severson & Werson

Orange County

Severson & Werson