Latest Headlines
- Escambia School Grades Released. See How Your Child’s School Scored.
- Bond Set For Cottage Hill Man Charged With Threatening To Kill Local Magistrate
- Cottage Hill Man Charged With Threatening To Kill Local Magistrate
- Five WaWa Stores In The Works For Escambia County. Here’s The List.
- Baldwin County Road 112 Closure To Impact Drivers From Escambia County
- Five Arrested On Drug Charges In Atmore
- Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola Designated As Only Level One Trauma Center In Panhandle
- Tate Aggies Volleyball Attends Florida Gators Camp
- Blue Wahoos Seize Big Inning, Sink Shuckers To End Four-Game Slide
- Motorcyclist Critical After Jacks Branch Road Crash
Appeals Court Rules On State Employee Drug Testing
May 30, 2013
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered a lower-court judge to reconsider her order blocking a program that would subject all state employees to random drug testing, but left little doubt that the plan would be found unconstitutional with regards to many state workers.
The 61-page ruling, which left both sides declaring victory, essentially overturned the decision by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro but also seemed to endorse the views of the union that sued to block Gov. Rick Scott’s drug-testing executive order.
Writing for a three-judge panel at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Stanley Marcus wrote that Ungaro was right to find the law troublesome, but said she went too far in barring the state from testing all 85,000 employees affected by the executive order.
“The district court, confronted with a suspicionless drug testing policy that almost certainly sweeps far too broadly and hence runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment in many of its applications, granted relief that also swept too broadly and captured both the policy’s constitutional applications and its unconstitutional ones,” he wrote.
Marcus said some employees, such as those who carry weapons or operate heavy machinery, could likely be tested because of safety concerns — if the state can justify those tests. But the ruling also made clear that some workers would likely be shielded from the tests.
“Just as we know that some subset of state employees almost certainly can be tested due to specific, important safety concerns, we know that there are some employees who almost certainly cannot be tested without individualized suspicion,” Marcus wrote.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which brought the lawsuit, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida called on the state to drop the case.
“It would be foolish of the governor to continue pushing to implement his across-the-board drug testing regime when the court clearly states that, under the Fourth Amendment, many of the individuals covered by the executive order cannot be subjected to invasive and humiliating searches just because they are government employees,” said Shalini Goel Agarwal, a staff attorney for the ACLU who led the case. “We look forward to returning to the district court where the Governor will have to show how each of his 85,000 employees presents a serious safety risk in order to test them.”
But in a statement issued late Wednesday, Scott emphasized the court’s decision to overturn Ungaro’s order and suggested the fight will continue.
“The Court did the right thing today by reversing the injunction on our executive order for drug testing state employees,” Scott said. “We will go forward in arguing this case in both the appellate and trial courts in order to ensure that taxpayer funds are safeguarded from misuse by ensuring our state workforce is drug free.”
By The News Service of Florida
Comments
9 Responses to “Appeals Court Rules On State Employee Drug Testing”
It’s funny how some of you speak of state employees as some sort of subset of society. State employees, despite your descriptions, ARE taxpayers. We must abide by the same laws that prevents illicit drug use. I assure you that there is no “free reign to use or abuse narcotics with no chance of ever being tested”. We follow the same laws every other Florida resident does…or does not .
cygie,
It’s considered a search of their persons since it is intended to search them for drug use. It’s considered an unreasonable search for the very reason you cite: it is done without any reason to suspect illegal drug use. Further, even if they ARE breaking the law, they are not considered a public danger unless the messing up of their minds puts others in danger.
For example a doped up or drunk bus driver is a danger to all, so pre employment testing is a reasonable search. Testing after an at-fault driving event is reasonable since drugs may explain it. Random testing is harder to justify other than the continuing danger and is why I get tested every now and then.
Testing in other jobs should legal for new hires even without a safety need.
Testing old hires shouldn’t be legal since it takes away an existing right under threat of firing. (Hiring and firing are different animals.)
I don’t have a problem with them drug testing state employees but it should NOT just be about safety concerns that target specific jobs. It should be ALL state employees. You shouldn’t get any money from the gov’t if you are doing anything illegal. It also should not stop with state employees. The drug testing policy should reach out to everyone who gets money from the state such as state reps., senators, judges, DA’s, Sheriffs, court appointed attorney’s and possibly even companies working under a state contract. If drug testing laws included elected state officials, they would be rulled unconstitutional in a heartbeat. haha
I feel employees should be screened also for Alcohol and Nicotine use as well.
Just as a spade is a spade, a drug is a drug. A person should not be judged by the atoms in their molecule chain of choice.
I would rather have an employee who had smoked a joint the night before as opposed to one who had consumed 750 ML of alcohol.
Start drug testing state employees… your gonna lose a lot of workers thus opening up many positions to be filled…. I know of at least one UWF worker thats praying this doesnt happen!
I am subject to random drug testing for my current job, and when I was in the military as well. No one is forced to have a drug test, but if they want to work they will do it. I think that anyone who wants money from the government should be required to submit to drug screening. Word it like the privacy act statement. You don’t have to do this, but if you want this you have to.
Not really clear as to how the Fourth Amendment is violated, as random testing is just that; random. This is not, in my opinion, illegal search/seizure.
So we as the tax payer must abide by the law and not use illegal drugs or abuse prescription drugs, but a state employee has free reign to use or abuse narcotics with no chance of ever being tested for them. That would seem to be exclusionary.
Note that Gov Scott’s wife (wink, wink) owns health clinics that provide drug testing services. Not that there is a conflict of interest in this for Gov Scott? Heaven forbid. Obviously Gov Scott must know if there are enough state employees that are on drugs to justify this expense of guilty until proven innocent.
I wonder why the ACLU never speaks up for the Military?
I guess they want sober personnel to fight their people’s wars for them.