The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court order denying an employer’s TCPA motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by its former employee.
Quattro Operating, Inc., a Division of Arch Energy Group, LLC v. Clayton Byrd (No. 05-25-00357-CV; October 7, 2025) arose from an employer-employee dispute. In 2023 Byrd, an experienced pipeline technician, hired on with Quattro, which specialized in pipeline gathering and transportation, after Quattro bought Kinder Morgan. Byrd’s primary duties included maintaining and monitoring gas meters, performing accuracy tests, and installing instrumentation. Kinder promoted him twice and made him Safety Lead in Montague County. Byrd performed similar duties for Quattro, which in 2024 required Byrd to take a company-required drug test. Administered by Quest Diagnostics, Byrd’s test showed a high level of creatinine and was cancelled. Shortly thereafter, Quattro terminated Byrd based on the cancelled test. Quattro’s President and Director of Operations sent an email to at least 17 employees and others informing them that Byrd had violated the company’s substance abuse policy. Byrd sued Quattro, alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, and negligence. Quattro filed a general denial and filed a TCPA motion to dismiss. Byrd opposed the TCPA motion, which the trial court heard and denied. Quattro sought accelerated interlocutory relief.
In an opinion by Justice Smith, the court of appeals affirmed. Under the TCPA, Quattro bore the burden of demonstrating that Byrd’s legal action was based on or in response to Quattro’s exercise of the right of free speech, i.e., “a communication made in connection with a matter of public concern.” § 27.001(3), CPRC. Quattro argued that the president’s email communication concerned enforcement of the federal government’s regulation of drug testing in the pipeline business, citing a number of authorities. The court rejected Quattro’s argument, which relied on two binding decisions, Lippincott v. Whisenhunt, 462 S.W.3d 507 (Tex. 2015) and ExxonMobil Pipeline Company v. Coleman, 512 S.W.3d 895 (Tex. 2017). The court observed that both cases were decided before the 2019 TCPA amendments became effective. Since then, SCOTX has decided, among other cases, McLane Champions, LLC v. Hous. Baseball Partners LLC, 671 S.W.3d 907 (Tex. 2023), in which it stated that those amendments “clarif[ied] that ‘not every communication related somehow to one of the broad categories set out in section 27.001(7) always regards a matter of public concern.’” 671 S.W.3d at 915. SCOTX thus “‘necessarily cabined’ its prior statement that the TCPA does not require more than tangential relationship to the public concerns identified in the statute.” Id. at 916, n.9. Consequently, the court of appeals “cabined” its own pre-2019 precedent relating to the nexus standard.
Despite losing ground on its reliance on pre-2019 cases, Quattro contended that any connection between Byrd’s drug test results and public safety satisfies the statute. Byrd relied on the court’s decision in U.S. Anesthesia Partners of Texas, P.A. v. Mahana, 585 S.W.3d 625 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2019, pet. denied), which similarly involved an employee lawsuit against her employer for allegedly defamatory communications regarding a failed drug test. In that case the court held that the disputed communications were not made in connection with an issue related to health or safety or community well-being, as USAP claimed. It should be noted that the Mahana court distinguished Lippincott, which involved a nurse’s job performance in providing adequate care for pediatric patients. Quattro’s email communication here closely resembled the one in Mahana. Unlike the communication in Lippincot, Quattro’s email didn’t “address Byrd’s job performance or relate to whether he properly performed his duties and does not state he used illegal drugs on the job or that his alleged use impacted his job performance.”
To add insult to Byrd’s injury, he showed that he had never before received any bad reviews, never failed a drug test, and received merit-based raises and higher levels of duties every year between June 2015 to April 2024, when he was terminated. Byrd further alleged that Quattro didn’t comply with its own policy because the test was cancelled, not flunked. The court thus concluded that Quattro’s communication was not made in connection with a matter of public conern. The only thing the email did was to inform certain people of Byrd’s termination for “violating” the company’s drug policy. The court thus affirmed the trial court’s order.
