King v. Garfield County Pub. Hosp. (Summary)

DRUG TESTING OF EMPLOYEES

King v. Garfield County Pub. Hosp., No. 12-CV-0622-TOR (E.D. Wash. May 1, 2014)

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington granted in part and denied in part a hospital’s motion for summary judgment after a nurse’s employment was terminated for alleged drug diversion.

The plaintiff, a registered nurse, was employed by the defendant hospital. After a painful dental procedure, the nurse was prescribed painkillers with codeine. In the days that followed, another nurse suspected that the hospital’s supply of morphine had been diverted and diluted by an employee, as a morphine sulfate bottle that was intended to contain only 15 milliliters actually contained 34 milliliters. The hospital subsequently administered a drug test to its employees. The nurse, who had been taking the prescribed painkillers with codeine, which metabolizes into morphine, was found to have high levels of morphine in his system, and was subsequently put on leave. Experts later opined that while there was a presence of the drug in the nurse’s system, the results were not consistent with the use of the morphine from the hospital. The nurse then sued the hospital, along with the company involved in administering the drug test, and the doctor responsible for interpreting the test’s results.

The court held that the doctor interpreting the drug test’s results may have been negligent in telling the hospital that the nurse had near-fatal levels of morphine in his system. The doctor was unable to evaluate the dosage levels from the simple urine analysis conducted, and he should have taken into account the fact that the nurse was on prescribed painkillers with codeine. Additionally, it was determined that an expert witness was not required to explain the causal relationship between the negligence and the resulting injury to the nurse.

The court ruled that the administration of the drug test was not an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, because a government hospital has so high an interest in protecting patients from employees under the influence of drugs. The court found potential merit in the nurse’s claims that his termination without a hearing was in violation of his right to due process. Even though the nurse was later able to find a job elsewhere, a name-clearing hearing was still deemed appropriate because the accuracy of the charges was contested, the charges had been made subject to public disclosure, and the accusations were connected to his termination.

Hospital officials were not entitled to qualified immunity because they placed stigmatizing information in the nurse’s personnel file without a name-clearing hearing. The court did grant the defendants’ summary judgment against claims of a breach of promises of specific treatment, finding that there was no evidence presented to establish the hospital’s pattern of practice that would contradict the language of the hospital’s employee handbook.

The hospital was not vicariously liable for the actions of the doctor interpreting the drug test’s results, as the nurse was unable to explain how this doctor presented himself as an agent for the hospital. The request for summary judgment to dismiss this claim was therefore granted.