Mission Petroleum Carriers, Inc. v. Solomon

Roy Solomon, an at-will truck driver for Mission, was randomly selected to provide a urine sample for drug testing. Mission’s representative violated a number of U. S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”) safeguards in the collection of the sample, which tested positive for THC metabolite, a chemical produced by the human body after marijuana use. Although Solomon insisted that he had never used marijuana, Mission terminated him and, as required by federal law, Mission informed all of Solomon=s prospective employers that he had failed a drug test.

Solomon sued Mission, alleging defamation, negligence and business disparagement. The jury found that Mission’s negligence resulted in the contamination of the urine sample. Judgment was entered in favor of Solomon and affirmed by the court of appeals.

In its review, the Texas Supreme Court noted its decision in SmithKline Beecham v. Doe in which it held that an independent drug testing laboratory owed no duty to warn the employee tested that certain substances could cause a positive test or to investigate the cause of a positive result. It also considered the fact that courts in other jurisdictions are split on the issue.

The Court noted that Congress had not given employees a private cause of action under the relevant DOT regulations. It further observed that employees have significant avenues of redress when employers fail or refuse to follow DOT protocol in collecting urine samples and that Solomon did not avail himself of these protections.

The Court finally considered its obligation to balance any risk to employees against the burden it could place on Texas’ employment-at-will doctrine. (In Texas, an employer generally can terminate an at-will employee for any reason or no reason at all.) In declining to impose this duty on employers, the Court reasoned that, if a duty of care were to arise every time the harm to an employee transcends the employment agreement, the employment-at-will doctrine would be undermined because an employers basis for termination would have to be justified by a reasonable investigation, which is contrary to the doctrine.