At-will employment doesn’t necessarily mean you can fire employees at will. Know how to protect your business from wrongful termination complaints.
Most employment relationships are at-will, meaning you can fire employees at any time for any legal reason or no reason at all. Often, employers hear “at-will” and “any reason” and skip over the “legal” part. In fact, there are many illegal reasons for firing an employee, and it’s important to understand them before you let someone go.

How easy is it for a snap decision to turn into a wrongful discharge complaint? Consider the well-known case of EEOC v. Walgreens, in which a diabetic employee with an 18-year record of excellent service ate a $1.39 bag of chips because she was hypoglycemic. She tried to pay for the chips when her sugar rebounded, but her supervisor, perhaps under the influence of a particularly strident presentation on shrink prevention, fired

May 17 2022

Yes, CBD Registers On a Drug Screen as THC and, Yes, You Can Be Terminated for It

Discrimination

There is a lot to unpack in the Lehenky v. Toshiba America Energy Systems Corporation, Case No. 20-4573 (E.D. PA, February 22, 2022) case as it answers two very interesting questions. First, does CBD register on a drug screen as THC, and can employees be terminated for using it? Second, is an employer test for prescription drugs an illegal medical inquiry in violation of disability laws?

Factual Background

In Lehenky, the plaintiff employee was terminated after testing positive for CBD, specifically for the “presence of marijuana metabolites (tetrahydrocannabinol, otherwise known as “THC’).” The plaintiff sued her former employer for disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and comparable state law, claiming that she was disabled and taking the substance to combat the effects of her disability, Panniculitis, which is an inflammatory autoimmune connective tissue disease.

As a firm with a robust cannabis practice group, this is a case

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