Two Federal Trade Commission lawyers should be shielded from claims they improperly retaliated against an Atlanta-based medical testing company whose chief executive publicly criticized the agency, a Washington federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The decision, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, overturned an earlier ruling that allowed the now-defunct LabMD and its chief executive, Michael Daugherty, to pursue First Amendment claims against FTC attorneys Alain Sheer and Ruth Yodaiken.