Top court supports Raytheon in ruling
Firms needn't reinstate workers dismissed for drug use, justices say
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, bolstering employers' get-tough stance against drug-using workers, ruled unanimously yesterday that federal law does not require a company to rehire an employee who had been fired for abusing narcotics.
So long as the company policy is a neutral one, applied the same way to all workers, the policy is not a form of intentional discrimination against the disabled -- outlawed by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, the court said.
The decision in a case involving a suit by a former Raytheon Co. worker dealt only with employees who have been fired for drug use, not for drug addiction. The ADA does not treat a drug user as a disabled person, according to specialists in labor law. But it does protect a worker who can prove he or she is addicted to drugs or alcohol. That condition qualifies as a disability, and the worker cannot be fired because of that addiction, provided the worker is capable of doing the job.
The decision, nevertheless, "is a gain for employers because it adds to the arsenal the employer has to try to stop drug use in the workplace," according to Lawrence Z. Lorber, a former deputy secretary in the Labor Department who practices labor law in Washington.
Lorber noted that the decision does leave a gap in legal protection for employers who get sued under the ADA by a worker who used drugs. If a worker can show that a policy against rehiring all workers who once were fired for drug use operates in fact as a pattern of discrimination against addicted individuals, that impact theoretically could violate ADA, he said.
"It would be extremely difficult to make that case," because legal precedents set "a very high standard" on when an employment policy reaches the level of discrimination in the workplace, Lorber said. That kind of claim technically is labeled a "disparate impact" claim; yesterday's ruling did not deal with that phenomenon, but only with intentional discrimination.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the new ruling, joined by six other justices. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter did not take part in the decision; neither gave a reason.
An across-the-board no-rehire policy, Thomas said, "is a quintessential, legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for refusing to rehire an employee who was terminated for violating workplace conduct rules," such as drug use. Thus, a firm can use its policy as a defense to a claim that it discriminated under ADA, the opinion said.
The case involved an Arizona man, Joel Hernandez, who worked for Hughes Missile Systems Co., a firm that produced such systems for the federal government. Hughes has since been acquired by Raytheon, based in Waltham.
Hernandez worked first as a janitor, and later as a technician. Although his job performance was generally rated as satisfactory, he came close to being fired for alcohol-related absenteeism, but was kept on after he completed a rehabilitation program.
In 1991, however, he was fired after failing a drug test, showing that he had used cocaine -- a violation of a zero-tolerance company policy. He was told to resign or be fired; he resigned. After completing a drug recovery program, he asked the company for his old job back, but it refused because of its no-rehire policy.
He sued under ADA, claiming that he was rejected because of his past record of drug impairment, and that amounted to discrimination against his disability. A federal appeals court reinstated his claim after a federal judge had thrown it out. Raytheon then took the issue on to the Supreme Court.
