The Coats case Oral Arguments

On September 30th, 2014 the Colorado Supreme Court held oral arguments on the Coats case. This case involved the termination of an employee after a random drug test for having the presence of marijuana in their body. It was consumed off work and yet the employer had a no tolerance policy. The lower court dismissed the wrongful termination case even though the employee argued he was disabled and it was medically prescribed marijuana. I reported on this in an earlier post. Todays oral arguments were quite interesting even if the discussion seemed to center on technical points. The Denver Post has an article on it which it posted today. You can read the article which also has a link to the oral arguments. By clicking there you can at least for a while see a video of the arguments. A big part of the case is that while Colorado has a law permitting medical use of marijuana the federal law makes it illegal. Mr Coats was asserting he was doing something lawfully permitted off work premises so the termination was wrong by Colorado law. The employer also argued so the outcome is uncertain. In any event a decision can be expected which I will await. In the meantime the case has been interesting to follow. While not a workers comp case this case has an effect in workers compensation cases. Perhaps an injured worker will be prescribed marijuana or perhaps such a worker will be terminated after his work injury if he is tested for marijuana in his system. Employers may seek to terminate and stop temporary benefits in such a case. I guess we shall see what recourse the employee may have. Given also that recreational use of marijuana is permitted now in Colorado what about these no tolerance policies? The court may address this or may simply choose to avoid the issue on some technicality. Time will tell.

The Latest ICAP cases

Every month there is an update on the latest ICAP (Industrial Claim Appeals Panel) cases. These are not court appeal cases but rather are the next step to appeal after a hearing decision a party does not agree with. There are many such appeals monthly and from them

a selection is made to review. At least this provides us with some of the more interesting cases. Fortunately, these cases are posted at the Division website for anyone to read. The latest such review is shown here. There are 12 cases shown along with one court case of interest to the reviewer. These cases remind us of what is going on at recent hearings. Some of these cases may even be appealed further. Many may not be appealed. Many of us in this area enjoy getting these cases and the review which comes with them. For a list of several months of these cases you can click here. If you work in this field or even if you just wish to know what is happening in this area it is useful to have this resource. Attorneys even obtain continuing legal education credit for following this monthly program.