Reasonable Cause Protocols in the Transportation Industry At the inception of the government- mandated testing in the transportation industry from 1988–89, the most frequently challenged aspect of the program was ran- dom testing due to its extension of Fourth Amendment searches to individuals who manifested no behavioral cues indicating substance abuse. By contrast, testing based on reasonable cause—at least in the legal abstrac—was considered less objectionable. With the passage of time, transportation
industry employees have largely become inured to random testing. However, in actual implementation, reasonable cause testing has proven to be problematic due to the
inherent confrontation that arises when one employee tells another that he must submit to a legal search. Federal agencies foresaw the potential for
conflict inherent in reasonable cause testing and, consequently, provided for safeguards to prevent the misuse of such testing as a tool of harassment. Although these safe- guards vary from agency to agency, they generally consist of three components: (a) that the decision is based on the direct and contemporaneous observation of behavioral cues indicating substance abuse, (b) that, whenever practicable, these behavioral cues are observed by two supervisors, and (c) that one or more of the supervisors has re- ceived training in the detection of behavioral cues indicating substance abuse.
As with random testing, judges and arbi-
trators have held that the improper initiation of a “reasonable cause” test may result in liability and/or the inadmissibility of the test as evidence. InHudson v. City of Riviera Beach (2014
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64324, 38 I.E.R. 480 (S.D. Fla. 2014)), the plaintiff asserted that he had been subjected to reasonable cause testing as part of a personal vendeta against him by his employer’s human resources director related to a dispute between the plaintiff and the director’s son. Te plaintiff further contended that the director had sought to justify her decision based on an anonymous source whom she could not identify, never atempted to corroborate the information that she was purportedly given, and her
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