Drug Search at Brewery Challenged

The order allegedly came from the top.

Employees at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys allege in court documents that during a visit to Los Angeles last year, the company’s CEO, August Busch III, got wind of suspected drug use there.

On Aug. 18 of last year, with the help of drug sniffing dogs, a random drug search and seizure was ordered. Security guards locked exit gates and refused to let employees off the grounds while the dogs patrolled the parking lots.

Investigators and supervisors offered some employees a choice: Consent to a search of both their car and persons--including their shoes and wallets--or be suspended. Though most complied, a few employees refused, insisting a search would violate their civil rights, and were immediately suspended and later fired.

The search became the subject of a lawsuit this week pitting the rights of an employer to enforce rules against drug use on the job against employees’ rights to privacy in the workplace, a gray area in the law.

Noel Ragsdale, a USC professor who specializes in employment law, said both the beer company and the workers have strong cases.

“An employer does not have absolute rights over you,” she said. “Even though a company has property rights, there are rules for bodily protection. But individualized suspicion strengthens the employer’s case for the search. And it’s a stronger case for the company when you find something in their car.”

The case is similar to a suit filed last year by four other brewery employees, represented by the same Woodland Hills lawyer who filed suit Wednesday, Andrew M. Wyatt. A Superior Court judge threw out that case, saying that under the company’s union contract, the dispute had to be resolved by collective bargaining.

With the one-year statute of limitations about to run out Monday, 19 of their co-workers accused the company in a second lawsuit of invasion of privacy, wrongful termination, defamation and other charges.

John B. Golper, an attorney for Anheuser-Busch, defended the company’s actions Wednesday, saying the brewery has a legal right to keep drugs off its property under its “right and obligation to maintain a drug-free workplace.”

“Persons and vehicles on the property are subject to search. There were signs posted long before August,” he said.

“It’s a safety issue,” he said. “These are people driving forklifts and operating high-speed machinery.”

But the employees, some of whom still work at the brewery, contend in their suit that the true goal of the search was not to eliminate drug use but to get rid of employees on a “hit list” of those who had complained about working conditions.

“If you are doing a random search, then why do you have a clipboard while looking at the cars?” asked Edward Simber, a steward of Local 896 of the Teamsters union.

Golper would not say if the company had a “hit list,” but acknowledged the use of an “internal employee document” in the search, listing some workers by name.

After searching more then 300 cars, marijuana was found in three of the vehicles, according to Wyatt. An employee of a private drug investigation agency hired to perform the search made a citizen’s arrest of two of the men who had marijuana in their cars, Wyatt said. The private investigator was also named a defendant in the suit.

Wyatt said that even before any marijuana was found, five employees were taken to a room in the plant and ordered to empty their pockets, take off their shoes and socks and hand over their wallets. No drugs were found, he said.

Noah Smith, a former bottler who was one of the two put under citizen’s arrest and later fired, denied that the golf-ball-sized amount of marijuana and a pipe found stuffed behind the seat of his car were his. The citation for marijuana possession issued against him was dismissed because the private investigator failed to show up for a hearing, he said.

“What they should have done was bring in an undercover narcotics officer if they really wanted to bust somebody,” Wyatt said. “That’s the best way. What they did was act like police and they have no right to do that.”