• In Hillsborough County v. Giambrone, a Florida appellate court overturned a lower court’s unprecedented ruling that required a county to accommodate a paramedic’s off-duty medical marijuana use after a positive random drug test.
• The court emphasized that the language in the parties’ collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and drug-free workplace policies must be carefully considered.
• The court also held that Florida’s medical marijuana framework does not: 1) create a private cause of action against an employer for wrongful discharge or discrimination; 2) by itself, create an affirmative accommodation mandate; or 3) prohibit an employer from enforcing stringent fitness-for-duty standards in a safety-sensitive setting.
• Forty states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, but state laws vary on workplace accommodations and restrictions on drug testing.

Recreational marijuana use remains illegal in Florida, but medical marijuana use is lawful for adults ages twenty-one and older with a valid Medical Marijuana Use Registry card for a qualifying medical condition. Increasingly, employees have sought to utilize the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA) to claim that their personal symptoms or limitations qualify as disabilities for which employers must accommodate medical marijuana usage.

Background

In February 2019, Angelo Giambrone, an emergency medical technician (EMT) for Hillsborough County’s fire department, tested...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi4wFBVV95cUxORFN5ckg4TVFlOWFPaUgzMHlq...