d a drug problem. If he had believed that she was really impaired he would have never let her drive home.In Pettus v. Du Pont, 49 Cal.App.4th 402, 57 Cal.Rptr.2d 46 (1997) Mr. Pettus was an employee with 22 years of service who was advised by his doctor to take a 90-day disability leave for stress. The company required him to be examined by its own psychiatrists to confirm the diagnosis. The psychiatrist concluded that Pettus was not a threat but mentioned something about alcohol during the interviews. The company psychiatrist said that he should only be laid off for 90 days to deal with stress. The company forced him into an alcohol rehab program in addition to the 90-day stress leave, which he rejected. When it's put this starkly, we can predict the court's opinion. The court held that forcing him into a program was an invasion of his right to privacy. If he had a drinking problem, he has the right to deal with it, as he wants. The employer's only interest is what happens at work. ??Employee Privacy Concerning Drug Testing in the Workplace??Lab testing, Is it accurate and can the employer rely on the outcome? Yes. If the testing is done by using people’s hair-even the hair of people long dead-reveal a great deal about their health and personal habits. Not surprisingly, in an age when 81% of large U.S. corporations engage in some kind of employee drug screening, a lot of companies are looking hard at these new testing techniques. According to the American Management Association, about 2% of big U.S. (Fortune 163) companies have already begun to test hair, and the percentage is rising. A major selling point is that hair analysis has a wide detection window where urinalysis can be altered or changed easily by health supplements to detoxify. While urine tests generally detect drug use during the previous week, hair tests can reveal any illegal indulgence back as far as a month or more. Employers can count on a hair test to be reliab...
