The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration’s (“FRA”) final rule expanding drug and alcohol testing to maintenance-of-way (“MOW”) employees takes effect on June 12, 2017. MOW employees are “employees of a railroad, or of a contractor to a railroad, whose duties include inspection, construction, maintenance or repair of railroad track, bridges, roadway, signal and
Drug and Alcohol Testing
West Virginia Enacts Law Permitting Broad Employment-Related Drug And Alcohol Testing
By Ian B. Bogaty on
Posted in Drug and Alcohol Testing, New Legislation
Workplace drug and alcohol testing in West Virginia traditionally has been scrutinized by the courts and has been available to employers in limited circumstances. That will change dramatically this summer when the state’s new drug and alcohol testing law, the West Virginia Safer Workplace Act, takes effect. Passed by the state legislature on April 8,…
Unreliable Anonymous Tip Could Not Form Basis Of Reasonable Suspicion Drug Test By Public Employer
By Kathryn J. Russo on
A public employee established a Fourth Amendment violation by several individual supervisors of his former employer when they selected him for reasonable suspicion drug testing – and later discharged him — based on an unreliable anonymous tip. Greer v. McCormick, 2:14-cv-13596 (E.D. Mich. April 10, 2017).
The Plaintiff, Ralph Greer, was a former employee…
Reporting Reasonable Suspicion Tests To Third Parties When No Suspicion Existed May Give Rise to Defamation and Invasion of Privacy Claims in Louisiana
By Kathryn J. Barry on
Requiring employees to submit to directly observed reasonable suspicion testing and falsely reporting to third parties that the employees were tested because of reasonable suspicion may give rise to claims for invasion of privacy and defamation, according to two recent decisions by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Cook v. Warrior …
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Public Employee For Failing Random Drug Test
By Kathryn J. Barry on
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas did not violate a public employee’s Fourth Amendment rights by requiring the employee to submit to a random drug test or by terminating his employment when he tested positive for cocaine, according to a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Washington…
Court Upholds Dismissal of Employee Based on Refusal to Submit to Reasonable Suspicion Drug Test
By Sarah R. Skubas on
The highest court in West Virginia recently affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit in which an employee challenged the decision to terminate her employment after she refused to submit to a reasonable suspicion drug test. Layne v. Kanawha County Board of Education, No. 16-0407 (W.VA. Feb. 17, 2017). The case highlights the right way…
Refusal to Submit to Drug Testing Requires Evidence of Intent, in Kansas Workers’ Compensation Case
By Jackson Lewis P.C. on
An appellate court in Kansas ruled that an insufficient urine specimen, without evidence of intent to thwart the drug test, is not a refusal to submit to a test for purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act. Byers v. Acme Foundry, 2017 Kan. App. LEXIS 12 (KS. Court of Appeals January 27, 2017).
Mr. Byers was…
Case Alleging That Hair Follicle Drug Testing Has Disparate Impact on African-Americans Allowed To Proceed
A municipal employer that conducted hair follicle drug testing on police officers was not entitled to summary judgment on a Title VII disparate impact claim, because a reasonable jury could conclude that an alternative to hair follicle drug testing would have met the employer’s legitimate needs, according to the United States Court of Appeals for…
Federal Court Upholds NLRB Decision Finding That Employee Had Right To Physical Presence of Union Representative Before Consenting To Drug Test
By Kathryn J. Russo on
A federal appeals court upheld November 16, 2016 the decision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that an employer violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act by denying an employee the right to the physical presence of a union representative before consenting to take a drug test, and by discharging him for…
Employer’s Honest Belief That Employee Violated Drug Testing Policy Defeated ADA Claims
An employer that terminated an employee based on its honest belief the employee violated its drug policy was entitled to summary judgment on the employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act claim, according to a Kentucky federal court. The court also granted summary judgment to the employer on the employee’s failure to accommodate and wrongful discharge claims.…