IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-30020

JESSE J. BRYANT,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

CITY OF MONROE; DON HOPKINS,

Defendants-Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana

USDC No. 3:12-CV-2378

Before JOLLY and JONES, Circuit Judges, and AFRICK, District Judge.*

AFRICK, District Judge:**

Plaintiff-Appellant Jesse J. Bryant (“Bryant”), an employee of the City 

of Monroe (“City”), underwent a suspicionless urine test pursuant to City and 

departmental drug-testing policies after an on-the-job vehicular accident. He 

was terminated after testing positive for marijuana use. Bryant filed a 

lawsuit against the City and his supervisor alleging, as relevant to this 

appeal, that the urine test was an unreasonable search in violation of the

* U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana, sitting by designation.

** Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should 

not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 

5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

November 19, 2014

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, § 5 of the 

Louisiana Constitution, and that his resulting termination violated a 

collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) and the Due Process Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment. The court below dismissed his claims on summary 

judgment, finding no violations of the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendments, 

the Louisiana Constitution, or the CBA because the drug test was a 

reasonable search which gave the City cause to terminate him. Bryant 

timely appealed. We AFFIRM.

I.

Bryant worked for the City as a labor crew leader in its Public Works 

Department. His job duties included driving City-owned pickup trucks, 

supervising and transporting a grounds crew, operating heavy 

groundskeeping equipment, working with pesticides, and maintaining

highway medians.

The City of Monroe prohibits drug use by its employees. The Public 

Works Department had an Accident/Incident Policy which requires 

suspicionless drug tests after certain accidents, designated on a sliding scale 

of “No Fault,” “Simple Fault,” “Negligent Fault,” and “Reckless Fault.” As 

pertains to this appeal, the Policy defines a “Simple Fault” accident or 

incident as “one which posed minimal danger to life and/or property and . . .

was the result of simple inadvertence, e.g. backing into a stationary object.” 

Pursuant to the Accident/Incident Policy, a first-offense “Simple Fault” 

accident or incident results in a “Written Reprimand” and a “Drug Screen.”

The City of Monroe also established by ordinance a separate drugtesting framework (“the City Policy”) governing all City employees, which 

was included in an employee handbook issued to Bryant. Category II of the 

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City Policy requires suspicionless drug testing after certain specified 

accidents or injuries.1

While on the job in November 2011, Bryant drove a City-owned pickup 

truck carrying crew members and equipment to clear an overgrown vacant

lot. As Bryant turned into the lot, the side of the truck brushed up against

what is described in the record as a bush or a stump. Although the record 

appears unsettled regarding whether this damaged the truck, Bryant does 

not dispute that he hit the bush/stump and that he was at fault in doing so. 

Three days later, one of the crew members brought this incident to the 

attention of Bryant’s supervisor, Defendant-Appellant Don Hopkins. 

Following a brief investigation and several delays, eight days after the 

accident Bryant underwent an unobserved urine test for drug or alcohol use.

The City concedes that when it ordered Bryant to undergo the urine 

test, it had no basis to suspect that he had used drugs or alcohol. Bryant

tested positive for marijuana metabolites. After a second test and additional 

proceedings, the City fired Bryant.

Bryant filed a § 1983 lawsuit alleging, as relevant to this appeal, that 

the suspicionless drug test and termination violated his rights under the 

Fourth Amendment, Article I, § 5 of the Louisiana Constitution, the CBA, 

and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The parties 

1 The other testing categories of the City Policy are not implicated in this case. 

Category I established “random routine” drug testing of employees in “safety sensitive”

positions. The drug test in this case was not “random [and] routine” and the City has not 

argued at any stage of the proceedings that the test was conducted pursuant to Category I. 

Likewise, the U.S. Magistrate Judge did not analyze or uphold the test administered to 

Bryant as a Category I “random [and] routine” test. See Bryant v. City of Monroe, No. 12-

2378, 2013 WL 5924731, at *9 (W.D. La. Oct. 31, 2013) (noting that the City could have had 

to wait up to three years before Category I authorized a random routine drug test). 

Accordingly, Category I is not implicated in this case.

Category III, which governs testing based on reasonable suspicion of substance 

abuse, and Category IV, which governs testing following an employee’s completion of a drug 

abuse program, do not apply.

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consented to proceed before a U.S. Magistrate Judge, who granted 

defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The U.S. Magistrate Judge 

concluded that the City’s drug-testing policy, as applied to Bryant, did not 

violate his constitutional rights.2 Bryant timely appealed.

II.

“We review summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as 

the district court.” E.g., Thompson v. Mercer, 762 F.3d 433, 435 (5th Cir. 

2014). We review a lower court’s “ultimate determination of Fourth 

Amendment reasonableness de novo.” Mack v. City of Abilene, 461 F.3d 547, 

552 (5th Cir. 2006).

III.

“[S]tate-compelled collection and testing of urine . . . constitutes a 

‘search’ subject to the demands of the Fourth Amendment.” Vernonia Sch. 

Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652 (1995) (citing Skinner v. Rwy. Labor 

Execs. Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 617 (1989)). “To be reasonable under the Fourth 

Amendment, a search ordinarily must be based on individualized suspicion of 

wrongdoing.” Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 313 (1997) (citing Vernonia, 

515 U.S. at 652-53). “But particularized exceptions to the main rule are 

sometimes warranted based on ‘special needs, beyond the normal need for 

law enforcement.’” Id. (quoting Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619). Accordingly, 

“where a Fourth Amendment intrusion serves special governmental needs, 

beyond the normal need for law enforcement, it is necessary to balance the 

individual’s privacy expectations against the Government’s interests to 

determine whether it is impractical to require a warrant or some level of 

2 The U.S. Magistrate Judge also granted summary judgment on Bryant’s claim that 

the test violated Louisiana statutory law. Bryant, 2013 WL 5924731, at *12. Bryant does 

not pursue this claim on appeal.

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individualized suspicion in the particular context.” Nat’l Treasury Emps.

Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665-66 (1989).

The Supreme Court’s decision in Skinner is illustrative. In Skinner, 

the Federal Railroad Administration (“FRA”) passed regulations requiring

drug testing of railroad employees after significant accidents, and authorizing 

discretionary drug testing after certain specified safety violations. See 489 

U.S. at 609-11. Presented with a facial Fourth Amendment challenge to the 

constitutionality of those regulations, the Supreme Court first concluded that 

public safety is a special, non-law-enforcement need justifying drug testing of 

safety-sensitive railroad employees as a way of enforcing restrictions on 

workplace drug and alcohol use. See id. at 620-21.

The Supreme Court then examined the reasonableness of the drug 

testing program by balancing the employees’ privacy interests against the 

government’s need to test without individualized suspicion. See id. at 624. 

On the privacy side of the balancing analysis, the Supreme Court concluded 

that the unobserved urine tests required by the regulations were not a severe 

privacy intrusion, see id. at 626, particularly because the expectations of 

privacy of the subject employees were significantly reduced by their 

“participation in an industry that is regulated pervasively to ensure safety, a 

goal dependent, in substantial part, on the[ir] health and fitness,” id. at 627. 

On the other side of the balancing analysis, the Supreme Court 

concluded that the government’s “interest in testing without a showing of 

individualized suspicion is compelling.” Id. at 628. First, the Court reasoned 

that blanket post-accident testing without any requirement of individualized 

suspicion is “an effective means of deterring employees engaged in safetysensitive tasks from using controlled substances or alcohol in the first place.” 

See id. at 629. Second, the Court reasoned that the drug tests would help the 

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railroads investigate and respond to accidents by confirming or excluding 

drug or alcohol use as a factor in both severe accidents as well as lesser 

incidents which “involve the potential for a serious train accident or grave 

personal injury.” See id. at 630 (emphasis added and internal quotation 

marks omitted). Requiring the employer to obtain facts suggesting a 

particular employee’s impairment, “a difficult endeavor in the best of 

circumstances,” and even more difficult in the “chaotic” aftermath of a serious 

accident, “would seriously impede an employer’s ability to obtain this 

information, despite its obvious importance.” Id. at 631. Balancing these 

interests, the Supreme Court concluded that “the Government’s compelling 

interests outweigh privacy concerns.” Id. at 633. Accordingly, the drug tests 

were constitutionally reasonable pursuant to the Fourth Amendment. See id.

at 634.

Applying this “special needs” framework, the Supreme Court has 

upheld rules or regulations authorizing suspicionless drug tests of Customs 

employees applying for positions requiring them to carry firearms or directly 

engage in drug interdiction, see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 679,3 and student 

athletes, see Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 664-65, but rejected testing of political 

candidates, Chandler, 520 U.S. at 321-22. This Court has applied the same 

analytical framework to uphold a test of a custodian pursuant to a rule 

requiring random drug testing of designated safety-sensitive school

employees. See Aubrey v. School Board of Lafayette Parish, 148 F.3d 559, 

3 The testing regulations at issue in Von Raab also applied to “employees who seek 

promotions to positions where they would handle sensitive information.” See 489 U.S. at 

677-78. The Supreme Court affirmed such testing in principle, but could not discern from 

the appellate record whether all of the categories of employees designated for testing, such 

as “Animal Caretaker” or “Baggage Clerk,” were in fact “likely to gain access to sensitive 

information.” See id. Accordingly, the Supreme Court remanded for additional proceedings 

to decide whether the regulations “defined this category of employees more broadly than is 

necessary” to address the special need for suspicionless testing. See id. at 678.

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564-65 (5th Cir. 1998).4 Finally, in a decision particularly relevant to these 

facts, the Sixth Circuit upheld the application of a policy requiring public 

transportation drivers to undergo a drug test after “an accident involving a 

fixed object.” See Tanks v. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Auth., 930 

F.2d 475, 477, 479 (6th Cir. 1991).5

Guided by these cases, the U.S. Magistrate Judge concluded that the 

test administered to Bryant was a constitutionally reasonable application of 

both the departmental Accident/Incident Policy and Category II of the City 

Policy. See Bryant, 2013 WL 5924731, at *10-11. On appeal, the parties 

likewise frame the issues in terms of the “special needs” analysis.

We begin by clarifying the issues presented in this appeal. First, we 

find no genuine dispute of fact on this record that the “Simple Fault” testing 

provision of the Accident/Incident Policy was triggered because Bryant’s Cityowned vehicle hit the bush as a result of his inadvertence. Second, although 

Bryant suggests that the Policy is vague or overbroad, we do not treat this as

a facial constitutional challenge. A suspicionless drug-testing policy may be 

constitutional as applied to some employees but unconstitutional as applied 

to others. See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 678-79. Accordingly, we address

whether the Accident/Incident Policy was constitutional as it was applied to 

4 Although Aubrey involved a drug test pursuant to a random drug-testing policy 

and not a post-accident drug-testing policy as in this case, we consider portions of its 

analysis very relevant to the present matter. See 148 F.3d at 561. First, the Aubrey panel 

concluded that the duties of the school custodian, which included using cleaning chemicals, 

mowing the school grounds, trimming trees, and making minor repairs, were safetysensitive, see id. at 561, 563, which sets a useful benchmark for assessing the safety 

sensitivity of Bryant’s duties. Second, the Aubrey analysis regarding the intrusiveness of 

the drug test and the employee’s expectations of privacy informs our analysis here.

5 Bryant directs us to United Teachers of New Orleans v. Orleans Parish School 

Board, in which we enjoined a suspicionless, no-fault, post-injury drug-testing program of 

all teachers, teacher’s aids, and clerical workers. See 142 F.3d 853, 856-57 (5th Cir. 1998). 

United Teachers is not apposite because the challenged testing program required drug tests 

after workplace injuries without any showing of fault by the employee, as is required by the 

Accident/Incident Policy in this case. See id. at 856.

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Bryant on these facts. Third, because we conclude that the drug test was a 

constitutionally reasonable application of the Accident/Incident Policy, we 

decline to decide whether the U.S. Magistrate Judge also correctly granted 

summary judgment based on Category II of the City Policy.6

The first question in the Skinner analysis is whether the City has 

articulated a “special need,” other than law enforcement,7 justifying drug 

testing of employees like Bryant. See Chandler, 520 U.S. at 318. The City 

asserts its interest in public safety, and the Supreme Court has held that 

public safety is a legitimate, non-law-enforcement interest that justifies drug 

testing of safety-sensitive employees to enforce prohibitions on drug use. See

Skinner, 489 U.S. at 620 (testing justified to protect “safety of the traveling 

public and of the employees themselves”); 489 U.S. at 672 (testing justified to 

further “Government’s compelling interests in safety and in the integrity of 

our borders”); see also Chandler, 520 U.S. at 323 (“[W]here . . . public safety is 

not genuinely in jeopardy, the Fourth Amendment precludes the 

suspicionless search, no matter how conveniently arranged.”) (emphasis 

added).8

6 We note, however, that the U.S. Magistrate Judge’s interpretation of Category II of 

the City Policy, which made superfluous the $500.00 property damage threshold for postaccident drug testing, is not convincing. See Quarles v. St. Clair, 711 F.2d 691, 701 n.32 

(5th Cir. 1981) (“[I]nterpretations which render parts of a statute inoperative or 

superfluous are to be avoided.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 7 The Accident/Incident Policy states that “The Monroe Police Department must be 

notified in the event of any accident/incident.” It is not apparent whether law enforcement 

was notified after Bryant’s incident and neither party addresses this provision. 8 Although Bryant points out the lack of any identified drug problem in the Public 

Works Department, such a showing is “not in all cases necessary to the validity of a testing 

regime.” See Chandler, 520 U.S. at 319. For example, there was no identified drug problem 

in Aubrey, where we observed that while “such a showing would be of persuasive value, it is 

not mandatory.” See 148 F.3d at 559; see also Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 673 (upholding

suspicionless testing program despite the fact that it “was not implemented in response to 

any perceived drug problem among Customs employees”).

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Bryant insists that his job duties, including the mere driving of a truck,

were not particularly safety-sensitive and, therefore, the City’s generalized 

interest in safety does not extend to testing him under these circumstances. 

As set forth above, his job duties included driving City vehicles and 

transporting co-workers, operating heavy groundskeeping equipment,

handling pesticides, and working in high-risk areas such as highway 

medians. While these duties may be less safety-sensitive than those of the 

railroad employees in Skinner, see 489 U.S. at 620-21, they are on the same 

level as the duties of the school custodian in Aubrey who performed 

groundskeeping and used cleaning chemicals, which we held to be sufficiently

safety-sensitive to justify drug testing. See 148 F.3d at 561, 563; see also

Tanks, 930 F.2d at 480 (holding that a transit agency had a special need to 

test its drivers because of its “responsibility to protect the safety of its 

passengers and the general public”).9 Accordingly, we conclude that there is 

no genuine dispute of material fact with respect to whether Bryant performed 

safety-sensitive tasks and that the City sufficiently articulated a special, nonlaw-enforcement need to test safety-sensitive Public Works Department 

employees for prohibited drug use.

“The question that remains, then, is whether the [City’s] need to 

monitor compliance with [its drug] restrictions justifies the privacy intrusions 

at issue absent a warrant or individualized suspicion.” Skinner, 489 U.S. at 

621. We conduct a balancing test to decide if this is one of the “limited 

9 We also note that Category I of the City Policy states that “positions where the 

health, welfare and/or safety of the public, co-employees and the individual is at risk shall 

be deemed ‘safety sensitive’ positions, including but not limited to” “operation of motorized 

vehicles, including automobiles, trucks, tractors, or other heavy equipment,” “positions that 

entail working in dangerous conditions,” and “positions that require the handling or use of 

chemical substances.” This buttresses our conclusion that Bryant’s job duties were 

genuinely safety-sensitive, despite the fact that we do not uphold the test pursuant to the 

City Policy.

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circumstances[] where the privacy interests implicated by the search are 

minimal, and where an important governmental interest furthered by the 

intrusion would be placed in jeopardy by a requirement of individualized 

suspicion.” Id. at 624.

On the privacy side of the constitutional balance, we examine the 

intrusion on Bryant’s justifiable expectations of privacy. With respect to the 

intrusiveness of the test itself, the unobserved urine specimen Bryant 

provided is similar to the test administered in Aubrey, which we 

characterized as minimally intrusive. See 148 F.3d at 564; see also Skinner, 

489 U.S. at 626 (explaining that unobserved urine testing “reduce[s] the 

intrusiveness of the collection process”).

With respect to Bryant’s justifiable expectation of privacy, that 

expectation “must be assessed in the context of the employment relation.” 

Aubrey, 148 F.3d at 564 (citing O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987)). In 

Aubrey, we held that the plaintiff school custodian’s justifiable expectations 

of privacy were reduced by his awareness that he was designated as safetysensitive and subject to random testing, and that he should have expected 

inquiry into his “fitness and probity” to perform his safety-sensitive duties. 

See Aubrey, 148 F.3d at 565 (citing Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 671); see also Von 

Raab, 489 U.S. at 672 & n.2 (“[A]pplicants know at the outset that a drug test 

is a requirement of those positions.”). Like the custodian in Aubrey, Bryant 

knew (or should have known) that he was subject to the Accident/Incident 

Policy, and he should have expected inquiry into his “fitness and probity” to 

operate vehicles and groundskeeping equipment through drug testing 

pursuant to that Policy. While Bryant’s expectation of privacy may be 

greater than that of the heavily-regulated railroad workers in Skinner, see

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489 U.S. at 627, it is nonetheless reduced by the nature of his position and 

duties.

On the other side of the balance, we examine the City’s “interest in 

testing without a showing of individualized suspicion.” Id. at 628.10 We 

conclude that the City has a strong interest in the deterrent effect of 

suspicionless mandatory testing of safety-sensitive employees after a faultbased vehicular collision with an inanimate object. “By ensuring that 

employees in safety-sensitive positions know they will be tested upon the 

occurrence of a triggering event, the timing of which no employee can predict 

with certainty, the [Accident/Incident Policy] significantly increase[s] the 

deterrent effect” of the City’s penalties for drug or alcohol use. See id. at 630. 

This is no less the case after a “Simple Fault” vehicular accident which posed 

minimal danger, because “[t]esting drivers after a fault-based accident 

involving minor property damage and no personal injuries . . . . provides an 

opportunity for intervention before greater harm occurs.” Tanks, 930 F.2d at 

480 (emphasis added). A requirement of individualized suspicion before 

administering such a drug test pursuant to the Accident/Incident Policy 

would significantly impair this deterrent effect.

The City’s interest in testing, absent individualized suspicion, in order

to investigate the cause of minor accidents such as this one is less compelling

than in Skinner, but measurable nonetheless. In Skinner, the difficulty of 

investigating the aftermath of a serious train accident increased the 

government’s need for suspicionless testing to gather “valuable information 

respecting” causation. See 489 U.S. at 630-31. Here, the City would have 

10 To reiterate, we are focused on the City’s interest in testing Bryant under the 

circumstances of this case. Because the Accident/Incident Policy expressly defines “backing 

into a stationary object” as a triggering event, we express no opinion with respect to the 

City’s interest in suspicionless testing of other employees after other hypothetical accidents 

or incidents potentially covered by the Policy.

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less difficulty determining the cause of a “Simple Fault” collision with a 

stationary object which “posed minimal danger to life and/or property.”

Nonetheless, the City has a valid interest in ruling out drug or alcohol use as 

a cause whenever its safety-sensitive Public Works employees drive a City 

vehicle into an inanimate object, and that interest would be impeded if 

individualized suspicion were required. See Tanks, 930 F.2d at 480 (holding 

that the city had an interest in “determining the cause of” a collision with a

stationary object even if only minor property damage resulted); see also

Skinner, 489 U.S. at 631 (explaining that even after less serious accidents, 

“objective indicia of impairment are absent”).

Bryant also points out that because he was not tested until eight days 

after the incident, the test results were no longer helpful to any investigation 

and the City’s need to test him without individualized suspicion was reduced. 

The results of the test were still probative despite the delay, however,

because “[e]ven if urine test results disclosed nothing more specific than the 

recent use of controlled substances by a covered employee, this information 

would provide the basis for further investigative work designed to determine 

whether the employee used drugs at the relevant times.” See Skinner, 489 

U.S. at 632. Moreover, much of the delay was the result of Bryant’s failure to 

report the incident, and the deterrent effect of mandatory post-accident 

testing would be undermined if an employee could avoid testing by concealing 

a triggering event from his employer.

Balancing these considerations in the context of the particular facts of 

this case, we conclude that the City’s strong interest in applying a drugtesting policy to a safety-sensitive employee after a vehicular collision with a 

stationary object outweighs the minimal intrusion on such an employee’s

reduced expectation of privacy. Accordingly, we conclude that the drug test 

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administered to Bryant pursuant to the Accident/Incident Policy was 

constitutionally reasonable and did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights. 

We affirm the summary judgment in favor of the City on that claim.

IV.

Bryant also asserts that the drug test violated Article I, § 5 of the 

Louisiana Constitution, which states that “[e]very person shall be secure in 

his person, property, communications, houses, papers, and effects against 

unreasonable searches, seizures, or invasions of privacy.” Article I, § 5 

“provides greater protection for individual rights than that provided by the 

Fourth Amendment in some circumstances,” Louisiana v. Jackson, 764 So. 2d 

64, 71 (La. 2000), but we are not convinced that this is one of those 

circumstances.

Bryant reads too much into the Louisiana Supreme Court’s statement 

in Richard v. Lafayette Fire & Police Civil Service Board that “[t]he propriety 

of a urinalysis test not ordered pursuant to a random drug testing program is 

appropriately evaluated according to whether the appointing authority had 

reasonable suspicion that a particular officer was a user of illegal drugs.” 8 

So. 3d 509, 514 (La. 2009). Richard addressed whether a particular set of 

facts gave rise to reasonable suspicion, not the constitutionality of 

suspicionless workplace drug testing. Moreover, Richard cited Skinner as 

providing the applicable balancing analysis for purposes of both the 

Louisiana Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, suggesting that both

provide the same level of protection with respect to drug testing. See 8 So. 3d 

at 515. Finally, if Bryant’s reading of Richard is correct, then the Louisiana 

Supreme Court casually overruled a Louisiana statute expressly allowing

programmatic drug testing of a public employee “following an accident in the 

course and scope of his employment.” La. Rev. Stat. § 49:1015(A). We decline 

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to attribute such a holding to the Louisiana Supreme Court without a more 

clear statement. 

We find nothing in Richard to suggest that Article I, § 5 of the 

Louisiana Constitution sets a higher standard than the Fourth Amendment 

to the United States Constitution with respect to suspicionless post-accident 

drug testing. The drug test administered to Bryant was therefore reasonable 

pursuant to the Louisiana Constitution for the same reasons set forth above, 

and the U.S. Magistrate Judge correctly granted summary judgment to the 

City on that claim as well.

Bryant’s remaining claims pursuant to the Due Process Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment and the applicable CBA depend on exclusion of the 

drug test results as the cause for his termination. Because we conclude that 

the drug test was constitutionally reasonable, the City had cause to 

terminate him. The U.S. Magistrate Judge correctly granted summary 

judgment in favor of the City on those claims as well.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is AFFIRMED.

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