Analyzing Our Employee Drug Testing Case Win

The Iowa Court of Appeals issued two decisions last week, including a ruling in one of our cases, that concerned Iowa’s employee drug and alcohol testing statute, Iowa Code 730.5. Those decisions add to the ongoing clarification of several unclear aspects of the testing statute. We discuss the lessons from our case.

Our case is Lucas Woods v. Charles Gabus Ford. Lucas was a service technician at Gabus. He supposedly tested positive for methamphetamines during a random drug test. Lucas was fired as a result.

Lucas asked us to review his firing. We decided that Gabus may have violated several requirements of the testing statute. One of those requirements mandates that employers send employees written notice of any positive test result. The notice must inform the employee of the employee’s right to have a second test done and the fee the employee must pay to the employer for the cost of the second test. Gabus’s notice to Lucas omitted the required information concerning the cost to Lucas of having a second test done after the initial testing came back positive.

The drug and alcohol testing statute provides for a wrongful termination claim if an employee is fired because of the results of a drug or alcohol test and the employer fails to prove that it substantially complied with the testing statute, including the post-test notice requirement. We filed suit on Lucas’s behalf claiming that his discharge was illegal because Gabus omitted the cost of retesting from its post-test notice. We sought lost wages for Lucas and attorney fees.

Gabus refused to settle the case so we took it to trial for Lucas. The trial judge ruled that Gabus had sufficiently complied with the notice requirement to avoid liability, even though the notice did not tell Lucas the cost of a retest. We continued to believe that Gabus violated the drug testing statute because of its failure to notify Lucas of the cost of retesting and appealed the trial judge’s decision.

On appeal we argued that this was a simple issue. The employee drug and alcohol testing statute required Gabus to notify Lucas of the cost to him for a retest. Gabus didn’t do so. It thus violated the testing statute and unlawfully fired Lucas. End of discussion.

The Iowa Court of Appeals agreed with us, using just a single page to reverse the trial judge’s ruling:

“The district court noted Woods “testified that if the notice had included the cost of the confirmatory test he ‘might’ have requested one,” but that “explanation begs the question of why [Woods] would not request the test, regardless of its cost, to exonerate himself because it would ultimately cost him nothing to do so if the confirmatory test result was negative for drug use.” That may be true, but it was Gabus Ford’s burden to inform Woods of the cost. Even though Woods was alerted he would be reimbursed if the second test was negative for drug use, there is nothing to show the cost would be minimal. For an employee just fired, alerting the employee that he had to pay for a second test without stating the cost did not give Woods “a meaningful opportunity to consider whether to undertake a confirmatory test.” We do not find Gabus Ford’s notice “substantially complied with section 730.5(7)(i) and assured the reasonable objectives of the statute,” as concluded by the district court. Without knowing the cost of the test, Woods could not make an informed decision. We find the district court erred in so concluding.”

The Iowa Court of Appeals sent Lucas’s case back to the trial court for further work on the case. We’ll not have an opportunity to argue for Lucas’s lost wages and attorney fees. Lucas didn’t have that opportunity the last time we were in the trial court because of the judge’s decision that Lucas’s firing wasn’t illegal.