Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-06-35262/USCOURTS-ca9-06-35262-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Woodburn
Appellant
Janet Lynn Lanier
Appellee
Linda Sprauer

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JANET LYNN LANIER, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 06-35262

CITY OF WOODBURN, D.C. No.  Defendant-Appellant, CV-04-01865-KI

and OPINION

LINDA SPRAUER,

Defendant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Garr M. King, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

February 6, 2008—Portland, Oregon

Filed March 13, 2008

Before: Pamela Ann Rymer and Richard A. Paez,

Circuit Judges, and Cormac J. Carney,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Rymer

*The Honorable Cormac J. Carney, United States District Judge for the

Central District of California, sitting by designation. 

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COUNSEL

Marjorie A. Speirs and Janet M. Schroer, Hoffman, Hart &

Wagner, LLP, Portland, Oregon, for the defendant-appellant.

Steven M. Wilker and Paul W. Conable, Tonkon Torp, LLP,

Portland, Oregon, for the plaintiff-appellee. 

OPINION

RYMER, Circuit Judge: 

This appeal requires us to decide whether the City of

Woodburn’s policy requiring candidates of choice for city

positions to pass a pre-employment drug test as a condition of

the job offer is constitutional, facially or as applied to Janet

Lynn Lanier, the preferred applicant for a part-time position

as a page at the Woodburn Library. The district court held that

it was not. We agree that Woodburn’s policy is unconstitutional as applied because the City failed to demonstrate a special need to screen a prospective page for drugs, and affirm

on this basis. By the same token, Lanier did not show that the

policy could never be constitutionally applied to any City

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position. We reverse the district court’s order to the extent it

implies otherwise, and remand for its declaratory judgment to

be clarified so that it is consistent with our holding. 

I

In February of 2004, Lanier applied to be a page at Woodburn’s public library. Pages perform tasks such as retrieving

books from the book drop and returning them to the shelves.

Occasionally, they may staff the desk in the youth services

area, where materials for children and teenagers are housed.

Woodburn gave Lanier a conditional offer of employment,

subject to successful completion of a background check and

pre-employment drug and alcohol screening. 

Woodburn’s Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual has

provided for pre-employment drug and alcohol tests since

2002. It provides:

Drug and Alcohol Tests: As a drug-free workplace

(see Section 11.171), The City of Woodburn requires

a pre-employment drug and alcohol screen for all

prospective applicants. The candidate of choice for

a City position must successfully pass the drug and

1Section 11.17 states: 

The City of Woodburn considers its employees to be its most

valuable asset, and is concerned about their safety, health, and

well-being. In keeping with this commitment, the City of Woodburn has a strict policy regarding the inappropriate use and possession of drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse can impair

employee performance and general physical and mental health,

and may jeopardize the safety of co-workers and the general public. 

Among other things, it prohibits use of a controlled substance on city

property or during work hours. It allows testing where the City has reasonable suspicion that an employee is under the influence, and searching

where the City reasonably suspects that controlled substances may be

found. 

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alcohol screen as a condition of the job offer. The

confirmed presence of any illegal drug or alcohol in

a urine sample will be cause for disqualifying an

applicant. 

Id., § 11.14.B.(2). According to Woodburn, this policy was

adopted because some department heads, based on their experience with employees who had been under the influence at

work, believed that the use of drugs or alcohol had a negative

impact on job performance and thought that all prospective

employees should be subject to screening to deter such use.

In addition, the Manual provides for an “extensive” preemployment investigation of an applicant’s employment and

criminal history for positions identified as “security sensitive.” Manual, § 11.14.B.(1). “Security sensitive” positions

include “[a]ny position that is responsible for the supervision

or control of juveniles (all positions in the Recreation and

Parks Department Pool and Recreation Divisions and in the

Library).” Id., Appendix B. 

Lanier wanted to accept the page position she was conditionally offered, but declined to be tested. Woodburn

rescinded the offer. Lanier then brought this action, alleging

violation of her rights under the Fourth Amendment to the

United States Constitution and under Article I, Section 9 of

the Oregon Constitution.2

The district court granted qualified immunity to the Library

Director (a ruling that is not on appeal), and summary judgment in favor of Lanier. It also entered a declaratory judgment

which states that the City’s policy is unconstitutional “to the

extent the policy is warrantless, suspicionless, and is unsupported by a special need that outweighs reasonable expectations of privacy.” This timely appeal followed. 

2The parties agree that these provisions are co-extensive for purposes of

the issues on appeal. 

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II

[1] There is no question that Woodburn’s drug screening

policy effects a search within the meaning of the Fourth

Amendment. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 322 (1997).

No material facts are in dispute. Accordingly, we must determine whether, as a matter of law, the policy “fit[s] within the

closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible

suspicionless searches.” Id. at 309. 

A

Woodburn maintains at the outset that Lanier conceded

away her facial challenge. The City bases this on a colloquy

between Lanier’s counsel and the district court about the form

of declaratory relief. During the colloquy, Lanier’s counsel

stated that he did not believe the court’s summary judgment

opinion “foreclosed the possibility that there could be positions for which there would be an application that would be

constitutional under the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence,” and

requested a judgment declaring the policy unconstitutional as

applied to Lanier “to the extent” there was a need for the

declaratory judgment to be tailored for the position she was

offered. However, we do not take this as a concession with

respect to facial validity. As we read the exchange, counsel’s

statement had to do with his view of the court’s ruling, not of

the City’s policy. 

[2] On the merits of the facial challenge, Lanier argues that

there is no set of circumstances under which the City’s policy

would be constitutional as applied to every applicant for all

jobs. She relies on Baron v. City of Hollywood, 93 F.Supp.2d

1337 (S.D. Fla. 2000), which applies this standard to a similar

municipal policy. However, the test prescribed by the United

States Supreme Court requires a party asserting a facial challenge to show that “no set of circumstances exists under

which the [policy] would be valid.” United States v. Salerno,

481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987); see also S.D. Myers, Inc. v. City

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and County of San Francisco, 253 F.3d 461, 467-68 (9th Cir.

2001). Thus, a policy of general applicability is facially valid

unless it can never be applied in a constitutional manner. Cf.

Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. Dep’t of Transp., 932 F.2d 1292,

1303 (9th Cir. 1991) (noting that we “decide only the narrow

question of whether these drug tests ‘can ever be conducted’

without offending the fourth amendment.”) (emphasis in original). Lanier’s version would turn Salerno on its head, which

we decline to do. As Lanier makes no serious Salerno argument, and suggests no concrete reason why Woodburn’s policy could not constitutionally be applied to jobs that, for

example, require the operation of dangerous equipment, see

Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 932 F.2d at 1303, we cannot say that

the policy is invalid on its face. 

B

Woodburn posits that it has a substantial and important

interest in screening library pages for three reasons: drug

abuse is one of the most serious problems confronting society

today, drug use has an adverse impact on job performance,

and children must be protected from those who use drugs or

could influence children to use them. No doubt these problems are worthy of concern, but there is scant, if any, indication that on account of them, the City has “special needs” of

sufficient weight to justify an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of individualized suspicion. Chandler,

520 U.S. at 314; Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489

U.S. 602, 617, 619 (1989). 

[3] Chandler makes clear that the need for suspicionless

testing must be far more specific and substantial than the generalized existence of a societal problem of the sort that Woodburn has posited. In Chandler, the State of Georgia sought to

subject candidates for public office to suspicionless testing to

show its commitment to the war against drugs. Like Woodburn, Georgia asserted no evidence of a drug problem among

the targeted population, and the officials who were required

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to pass a drug test were neither involved in interdiction, nor

did they typically perform “high-risk, safety-sensitive tasks.”

Chandler, 520 U.S. at 321-22. It follows here, as in Chandler,

that “[t]he need revealed, in short, is symbolic, not ‘special,’

as that term draws meaning from our case law.” Id. at 322. 

[4] While a demonstrated problem of drug abuse might

“shore up” an assertion of special need, id. at 379, Woodburn’s showing of an impact on job performance consists of

unspecified difficulty with employees under the influence

experienced by a few department heads over the years, and

one library employee in twenty-three years who had to

undergo rehabilitation on a couple of occasions. Again as in

Chandler, “[n]otably lacking in [the City’s] presentation is

any indication of a concrete danger demanding departure from

the Fourth Amendment’s main rule.” Id. at 318-19. 

[5] Finally, the City has an obvious interest in protecting

children, yet the link that Woodburn identifies between that

interest and a position as part-time library page is tenuous at

best. A page may staff a youth services desk for an hour or

so when needed, and children may be in the library unattended, but there is no indication that the library has any in

loco parentis responsibility for those children, that children’s

safety and security is entrusted to a page, or that a page is in

a position to exert influence over children by virtue of continuous interaction or supervision. For these reasons, Woodburn’s reliance on Knox County Educ. Ass’n v. Knox County

Bd. of Educ., 158 F.3d 361 (6th Cir. 1998), is misplaced. In

Knox, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Knox

County’s program of conducting suspicionless drug testing of

teachers and administrators because of the unique role that

teachers play in the lives of school children; the in loco

parentis obligations imposed upon them; and the fact that by

statute, teachers in Tennessee were charged with securing

order such that they were “on the ‘frontline’ of school security, including drug interdiction.” Id. at 375. It is evident (at

least on this record) that a part-time page, who could be a

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high school student herself, has no such role in the City of

Woodburn. 

[6] Woodburn submits that all library positions are “safetysensitive” because Appendix B to its Policy and Procedures

Manual says so. However, the Manual does not define

“safety-sensitive,” nor is there any evidence that, regardless of

how conceived, a page position is safety-sensitive. As we

have explained, it does not appear to be in the same sense

that, for instance, a teaching position was thought to be

safety-sensitive in Knox County. Nor does anything in the

record suggest that the job of a library page in the City of

Woodburn is comparable to jobs where courts have allowed

testing on account of safety sensitivity. Jobs are considered

safety-sensitive if they involve work that may pose a great

danger to the public, such as the operation of railway cars, Ry.

Labor, 489 U.S. at 628-29; the armed interdiction of illegal

drugs, Nat’l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489

U.S. 656, 677-78 (1989); work in a nuclear power facility,

IBEW, Local 1245 v. United States NRC, 966 F.2d 521, 525-

26 (9th Cir. 1992); work involving matters of national security, AFGE Local 1533 v. Cheney, 944 F.2d 503, 506 (9th Cir.

1991); work involving the operation of natural gas and liquified natural gas pipelines, IBEW, Local 1245 v. Skinner, 913

F.2d 1454, 1461-63 (9th Cir. 1990); work in the aviation

industry, Bluestein v. Skinner, 908 F.2d 451, 456 (9th Cir.

1990); and work involving the operation of dangerous instrumentalities, such as trucks that weigh more than 26,000

pounds, that are used to transport hazardous materials, or that

carry more than fourteen passengers at a time, Int’l Bhd. of

Teamsters, 932 F.2d at 1295. The work of a page, so far as

the record discloses, entails nothing of this order of magnitude. 

[7] We conclude that Woodburn has not articulated any

special need to screen Lanier without suspicion. This is the

“core issue.” Chandler, 520 U.S. at 317-18. Beyond it, we

discern no substantial risk to public safety posed by Lanier’s

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prospective position as a part-time library page. Consequently, we need not pause over the City’s remaining points

— that invasion of Lanier’s privacy interests is slight given

the minimally intrusive form of testing, that the testing would

have occurred pre-employment, and that she was in any event

subject to an extensive background check which further

diminished any expectation of privacy she may reasonably

have had. We express no opinion as to the weight of these

considerations, if any, in a different case. 

III

[8] Woodburn submits that the declaratory judgment cannot

stand even if we affirm the district court’s decision by holding

that the City’s policy is unconstitutional as applied. We agree.

The declaration is unclear: It seems merely to reiterate the

Fourth Amendment standard for Chandler searches rather

than to declare either that Woodburn’s drug screening policy

is unconstitutional as applied to Lanier, or that the policy is

facially unconstitutional. We have held that there is no basis

in this case for concluding that the City’s policy is facially

invalid, so the declaratory judgment goes too far to the extent

that it is susceptible to this interpretation. Therefore, we

vacate the judgment, and remand so that the district court may

enter a new judgment declaring only that Woodburn’s policy

is unconstitutional as applied to Lanier. 

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED, VACATED AND

REMANDED IN PART. 

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