Employer required to reasonably accommodate use of medical marijuana prescribed under NJ Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.
New Jersey Supreme Court affirms Appellate Division decision requiring an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee’s use of medical marijuana prescribed pursuant to New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.
Wild v. Carriage Funeral Holdings, 2020 N.J. LEXIS 299 (Supreme Court, decided Mar. 10, 2020)
In this case of first impression, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Division’s ruling that, under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD), an employer is required to accommodate its employee’s use of medical marijuana as part of his cancer treatment, as allowed under the state’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA).
Mr. Wild was hired as a licensed funeral director with the defendant in 2013. In 2015, he was diagnosed with cancer. As part of his treatment, his physician prescribed marijuana as permitted under CUMMA. After a minor work-related motor vehicle accident in 2016, Wild was taken to an emergency room, where he informed the hospital physician that he was using medical marijuana pursuant to a prescription. According to the police report, Wild was not at fault for the accident. The defendant learned of Wild’s drug use from the emergency room records and ordered him to take a drug test. When Wild tested positive for marijuana, he was terminated.
Wild filed suit against the defendant, claiming that they failed to reasonably accommodate his disability—namely, his cancer—and that he was unlawfully discharged in violation of NJLAD because he used medical marijuana as permitted by CUMMA in order to treat his cancer. In dismissing his suit, the trial court relied on a provision in the law stating that CUMMA did not require employers to reasonably accommodate licensed use of medical marijuana in the workplace.
The Appellate Division reversed, holding that although CUMMA did not require employers to accommodate an employee’s use of medical marijuana in the workplace, it did not affect an employer’s requirement under NJLAD to reasonably accommodate an employee’s disability, which, as the Appellate Division held, included an employee’s use of medical marijuana during off-duty hours. The New Jersey Supreme Court granted certification and agreed to hear the defendant’s appeal.
In affirming the Appellate Division’s ruling, the Supreme Court largely reiterated the Appellate Division’s reasoning:
[J]ust because the Compassionate Use Act does not require . . . an employer to accommodate the medical use of marijuana in any workplace, does not mean that the LAD may not impose such an obligation, particularly when the declination of an accommodation to such a user relates only to medical marijuana use during off-duty hours. [Here, Wild] alleged only that he sought an accommodation that would allow his continued use of medical marijuana off-site or during off-work hours.
This decision highlights the legal ambiguities surrounding workplace drug testing, CUMMA and NJLAD. As a result of this Supreme Court ruling, an employer can no longer rely on the fact that marijuana use remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act as protection against repercussions from firing employees who fail routine drug tests. Rather, employers will need to prepare a strategy to protect themselves from possible liability under the NJLAD in the context of the legal medical marijuana use of its employees.
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