Judge Bars Reagan Administration Plan for Drug Tests of Truckers, Bus Drivers

A federal judge on Friday barred a Reagan Administration program of random drug testing for 3 million interstate truck and bus drivers, a program scheduled to become mandatory next December.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said she found no solid evidence of drug use “to support the broad, sweeping, intrusive testing that’s proposed here.”

“The mere fact that there’s a perceived problem doesn’t mean the government can use a scattershot approach” to attack documented misconduct, Patel said. She said the government’s only evidence of drug use was “anecdotal and impressionistic” reports, plus one flawed study.

She issued a preliminary injunction against plans for random drug testing and mandatory testing of drivers involved in accidents. She did not block other regulations that will require pre-employment testing, drug testing at periodic physical examinations and testing based on a reasonable suspicion that a driver is using drugs.

Patel’s order does not immediately forbid drug testing, because mandatory testing under the Department of Transportation program was not to take effect until Dec. 21, 1989. Before then, her ruling may be challenged in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and also could be affected by pending Supreme Court decisions in two other drug testing cases.

But the judge also blocked some of the department’s regulations from taking effect immediately, and lawyers for truck drivers said the action would have a short-term impact on testing programs set up voluntarily by trucking companies.

For example, said attorney Jeffrey King, under department rules that were to become operational last week, any trucker who refused to take a drug test under a company testing program would be prohibited from driving for any interstate hauler. Those rules were blocked by Patel’s order, he said.

But Brian Kennedy, a Justice Department lawyer, said that any voluntary program that would have been authorized by the new federal rules was already permitted under previous law.

The programs cover the majority of more than 4 million transportation workers who would be affected by drug testing announced Nov. 14 by Transportation Secretary James Burnley.

The remaining million-plus workers not covered by Patel’s ruling are in the airline, railroad and maritime industries, or are in-state bus drivers. Railroad unions have filed a separate suit against their testing program.

The programs for interstate truck and bus drivers were challenged by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. of America, a group of 9,000 owners and drivers of heavy-duty trucks and small truck fleets. Patel indicated her ruling also would apply to a later suit by the Teamsters Union.