Required Drug Screening For Public Library Page Applicant Violated 4th Amendment
In February of 2004, Janet Lynn Lanier applied to be a page at the City of Woodburn's public library. Pages perform tasks such as retrieving books from the book drop and returning them to the shelves. Occasionally, they may staff the desk in the youth services area, where materials for children and teenagers are housed. Woodburn gave Lanier a conditional offer of employment, subject to successful completion of a background check and pre-employment drug and alcohol screening.
Woodburn's Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual provides for pre-employment drug and alcohol tests, as follows:
Drug and Alcohol Tests: As a drug-free workplace, The City of Woodburn requires a pre-employment drug and alcohol screen for all prospective applicants. The candidate of choice for a City position must successfully pass the drug and alcohol screen as a condition of the job offer. The confirmed presence of any illegal drug or alcohol in a urine sample will be cause for disqualifying an applicant.
According to Woodburn, this policy was adopted because some department heads, based on their experience with employees who had been under the influence at work, believed that the use of drugs or alcohol had a negative impact on job performance and thought that all prospective employees should be subject to screening to deter such use. In addition, the Manual provides for an “extensive” pre-employment investigation of an applicant's employment and criminal history for positions identified as “security sensitive.” “Security sensitive” positions include “any position that is responsible for the supervision or control of juveniles (all positions in the Recreation and Parks Department Pool and Recreation Divisions and in the Library).”
Lanier wanted to accept the page position she was conditionally offered, but declined to be tested. Woodburn rescinded the offer. Lanier then brought this action, alleging violation of her rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Lanier. On appeal, the 9th Circuit agreed that Woodburn's policy was unconstitutional as applied to Lanier. The city failed to articulate any special need to screen library page applicants for drug use, and therefore the city's policy requiring candidates of choice for city positions to pass a pre-employment drug test as a condition of the job offer was unconstitutional as applied to Lanier; the city asserted no evidence of a drug problem among the targeted population, and the officials who were required to pass a drug test were neither involved in interdiction, nor did they typically perform “high-risk, safety-sensitive tasks,” and the link between drug screening of applicants and the city's interest in protecting children was tenuous at best, as there was no indication that the library had any in loco parentis responsibility for children, that children's safety and security was entrusted to a page, or that a page was in a position to exert influence over children by virtue of continuous interaction or supervision. However, the circuit court also held that Lanier did not show that the policy could never be constitutionally applied to any city position, and therefore reversed the district court's order to the extent it implied otherwise.
Lanier v. City of Woodburn
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction includes California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii.