Lanier v. City of Woodburn (9th Cir. March 13, 2008)
Articles Discussing Case:
Public Employers: Drug Screening All Applicants Held Unconstitutional.
Ford & Harrison LLP • April 15, 2008
The Ninth Circuit recently held that a city’s policy of requiring candidates of choice for city positions to pass a pre-employment drug test as a condition of the job offer is unconstitutional as applied to an applicant for the position of library page. See Lanier v. City of Woodburn (March 13, 2008). The court held that the city failed to demonstrate a special need to screen prospective library pages for drugs, thus the policy is unconstitutional as applied to that position. The court also held, however, that the plaintiff did not show that the policy could never be constitutionally applied to any city position, thus it was not unconstitutional on its face.
