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Fourth Amendment Concerns and Drug Testing, What is Reasonable Cause?
Hudson v. City of Riviera Beach (2013)
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently held that a government
employee asserted a viable claim for violation of the Fourth Amendment for reasonable cause drug
testing where the test was not supported by sufficient individualized suspicion.
In Hudson v. City of Riviera Beach, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161799 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 13, 2013), the
plaintiff, an employee for the City of Riviera Beach, sued the City after he was terminated for
refusing to release the results of a drug test that he claimed constituted an unlawful search and
seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The plaintiff claimed that a City employee used her position of power to force him to take a drug
test for no reason other than a personal vendetta against him. When the supervisor was asked to
identify the reasonable suspicion for the testing, she explained that she had received several
complaints from employees alleging that the employee had glassy eyes and smelled like
marijuana. However, the supervisor never identified which employees had allegedly complained,
and later admitted that she had tested the employee “on a whim, a mere hunch.”
In his lawsuit, the employee argued that the drug test violated the Fourth Amendment because no
reasonable suspicion supported the employer’s decision to test him. The court began its analysis
with the general rule that in order for a search to be reasonable, it must be based on individualized
suspicion of wrongdoing. In this case, based on the lack of any reasonable basis for the test and
evidence of personal animosity against the employee, the court concluded that the lawsuit
sufficiently stated a viable claim that the drug test was unreasonable from its inception, and
therefore violated the Fourth Amendment.
This case reinforces the importance of adhering to Coast Guard regulations regarding reasonable
cause testing requirements, which provide that a “marine employer’s decision to test must be
based on a reasonable and articulable belief that the individual has used a dangerous drug based
on direct observation of specific, contemporaneous physical, behavioral, or performance indicators
of probable use.” 46 C.F.R. § 16.250(b).
The Coast Guard regulations (46 C.F.R. § 16.401(b)) require that crewmembers and supervisory
personnel must be properly trained in reasonable cause testing requirements. The training
program must include at least the following elements:

The effects and consequences of drug and alcohol use on personal health, safety, and work
environment;

The manifestations and behavioral cues that may indicate drug and alcohol use and abuse;
and

Documentation of training given to crewmembers and the employer's supervisory
personnel.
As the Hudson case demonstrates, the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches based
on a mere whim or hunch. Reasonable cause drug testing must be based on individualized
suspicion. Crewmembers and supervisory personnel must be properly trained in order to comply
with the Fourth Amendment and the Coast Guard’s reasonable cause drug testing regulations.
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