Total Articles: 3
Pre-Employment Drug Test Deemed Unconstitutional.
The waters have been muddied—somewhat--on the issue of drug testing applicants and employees. The legal right to drug test has always suffered from a bit of murkiness on account of ill-defined constitutional privacy rights. Will a recent federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal case complicate matters?
Public Employers: Drug Screening All Applicants Held Unconstitutional.
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.
drug and alcohol testing: is your policy up-to-date?
Regardless of the reason for drug and/or alcohol testing, employers must ensure that they comply with the applicable federal and state laws or risk substantial monetary penalties.
