Case Name: Bonita BRINSON, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. HOSPITAL HOUSEKEEPING SERVICES, LLC, and Broadspire, Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2018-06-22
Citations: 263 So. 3d 106
Docket Number: No. 1D17–505
Parties: Bonita BRINSON, Appellant/Cross-Appellee,
v.
HOSPITAL HOUSEKEEPING SERVICES, LLC, and Broadspire, Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Third Series
Volume: 263
Pages: 106–114

Head Matter:
Bonita BRINSON, Appellant/Cross-Appellee,
v.
HOSPITAL HOUSEKEEPING SERVICES, LLC, and Broadspire, Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
No. 1D17-505
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
June 22, 2018
Rehearing Denied February 12, 2019
Paul M. Anderson of Anderson & Hart, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
Gwen G. Jacobs of Bennett, Jacobs & Adams, P.A., Tampa, for Appellees/Cross-Appellants.

Opinion:
Osterhaus, J.,
Bonita Brinson failed two illegal-drug tests after falling and injuring her shoulder on the job at the hospital. She later sought workers' compensation benefits, but was denied by her employer-carrier because of the failed tests. See § 440.09(3), Fla. Stat. (2017). Ms. Brinson challenged the denial of benefits. But because she failed to rebut the statutory presumption attributing her injury primarily to the influence of drugs, see § 440.09(7)(b), we affirm the Judge of Compensation Claims' decision to deny benefits.
I.
Ms. Brinson was working as a housekeeper at a hospital when towards the end of her shift, she fell and dislocated her left shoulder. After the accident, a housekeeping supervisor transported Ms. Brinson to a local medical clinic where she provided a urine sample pursuant to her employer's post-accident, drug-testing policy. She failed the tests by testing positive for the presence of marijuana metabolites on two tests, an immunoassay test and a confirmatory gas chromatography mass spectrometry test.
When the employer hired Ms. Brinson, she signed a stipulation acknowledging the employer's drug testing policy, which said:
I have been fully advised that if I am injured on the job, regardless of how minor the injury may seem, I am to report that injury to my supervisor. All employees that are injured are subject to a drug test.
(Emphasis in original.) She also signed a "Drug Free Awareness" policy at work acknowledging that she "may be asked to provide (if there is reasonable suspicion .) body substance samples . to determine whether illicit or illegal drugs . have been or are being used."
Because of the positive tests, the employer-carrier denied Ms. Brinson's subsequent claim for workers' compensation benefits.
II.
When an injured employee tests positive for drugs after an accident, like Ms. Brinson did, Florida's workers' compensation law "presume[s] that the injury was occasioned primarily . by the influence of the drug upon the employee." § 440.09(7)(b), Fla. Stat. And it does not compensate for the injury. § 440.09(3), Fla. Stat. The law allows the injured employee, however, to rebut the statutory presumption denying compensation by presenting clear and convincing evidence that the "influence of the drug did not contribute to the injury." § 440.09(7)(b), Fla. Stat.
Ms. Brinson attempted to rebut the statute's presumption with the testimony of two expert witnesses, but failed to do so. Her strategy didn't include trying to establish an external cause for her injury. She didn't argue, for example, that she'd been tripped by a careless doctor, or pushed by an unruly patient. See, e.g., Hall v. Recchi Am. Inc. , 671 So.2d 197, 201 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996) (finding no relationship between a positive drug test and the workplace accident "because the uncontradicted testimony established that the industrial accident . resulted from a co-worker tripping and jabbing him in the back of the head with a screed"). She also didn't argue that the marijuana in her system was merely inactive residue of some fairly recent usage. Id. at 199-200 (noting that the JCC found no impairment where a positive drug test resulted from the use of marijuana five days before the workplace accident). Arguments along these lines, if true in her case, might have rebutted the statutory presumption.
Instead, Ms. Brinson's argument for rebutting the statutory presumption focused on attacking the limits of drug testing itself and the Workers' Compensation Act's reliance upon drug testing results. Her two doctor witnesses claimed that the drug tests only detect the presence of drug metabolites, but do not conclusively indicate that drugs are active in the bloodstream or have caused impairment. According to these experts, Ms. Brinson may not have been impaired despite her positive test results. The first doctor, Dr. Goff, testified to having no opinion on whether the drugs in Ms. Brinson's body contributed to her injury. He didn't know whether the positive tests correlated with real-life behavioral effects: "I have no knowledge of the correlation between [the drug test's] cut-off levels and clinical state of effects of the drug on an individual's behavior." According to his testimony, a positive drug test "doesn't tell us if the drug is active [versus inactive] in the bloodstream." The testimony of the second witness, pharmacologist Dr. Lazaridis, was much the same. She testified that the drug tests given to Ms. Brinson measured inactive metabolites, but didn't speak "to whether or not the patient is under the influence." On cross-examination, Dr. Lazaridis said that she could not say that "the levels [Ms.] Brinson had in her drug test were insufficient to cause any [behavioral] effects of marijuana on the date of her accident." She continued: "[T]here are other tests that are more focused on acute intoxication of an individual, [so] I couldn't say that it did [affect her behavior] or I couldn't say that it didn't." In response to another question, Dr. Lazaridis agreed that she could not "say today that [Ms. Brinson] definitely did not smoke on the date of her accident."
Thus Ms. Brinson's witnesses left open the question of whether she was under the influence when the accident occurred. They didn't know whether the drugs in her system contributed to her injury, and so failed to testify effectively for purposes of rebutting § 440.09(7)(b)'s presumption. Because their testimony didn't present clear and convincing evidence that the "influence of the drug did not contribute to the injury," as required by § 440.09(7)(b), Ms. Brinson failed to rebut the presumption.
We acknowledge the dissent's dissatisfaction with the probative limits of drug testing, as well as its up-to-date, drug-testing research. The bottom line here is that Ms. Brinson's witnesses could not say that her drug use did not contribute to her injury. We disagree that an exclusionary rule should be applied with respect to Ms. Brinson's two failed drug tests. She consented to the tests. And the Workers' Compensation Act doesn't forbid employers like this one from drug-testing after a workplace accident. Specifically, Florida law allows employers to drug test employees after an accident whether they operate a proper "drug-free workplace program" or not. See, e.g. , Gustafson's Dairy, Inc./Prof'l Adm'rs. Inc. v. Phillips , 656 So.2d 1386, 1387-88 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995) (applying the presumption in favor of an employer who drug-tested an employee after a workplace accident, even though that employer did not satisfy drug-free workplace program requirements). For employers qualifying as drug-free workplaces, the statute expressly allows "reasonable-suspicion drug testing" on the basis that "an employee has caused, contributed to, or been involved in an accident while at work." See § 440.102(1)(n)5., (4)(a)2., Fla. Stat. The freedom to drug-test under these circumstances is no different for non-drug-free workplace employers: "This section . does not abrogate the right of an employer under state law to conduct drug tests, or implement employee drug-testing programs." § 440.102(7)(e), Fla. Stat. See also Laguerre v. Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc. , 20 So.3d 392, 394 (4th DCA 2009) ("An employer who elects not to operate a drug-free workplace program . is not prohibited from conducting drug testing, as the statute expressly provides.").
Consistent with its statutory prerogative, Ms. Brinson's employment agreement and the employer's drug testing policy established the employer's program allowing it to drug-test Ms. Brinson after the accident. As described earlier, Ms. Brinson's employer had an express and bold-written policy of drug testing "all" injured employees after an accident, which Ms. Brinson accepted. Cf., § 440.102(1)(n) 5., (4)(a)2. Fla. Stat. (allowing reasonable-suspicion drug testing on the basis of being "involved in an accident while at work"). Ms. Brinson's testimony demonstrated that she fully understood this policy. She acknowledged that her employer "had a drug free policy" with employees; that she'd been drug-tested in the past when she applied for the job; that she could be drug-tested again in the future; and that she "had no objection" in this case to providing a urine sample after her accident and injury. For these reasons, we don't agree with the dissent's view that the drug testing here was unauthorized or illegal, or that the results of Ms. Brinson's failed drug tests should be excluded.
III.
Accordingly, we AFFIRM the order denying benefits for the workplace injury.
Lewis, J., concurs; Makar, J., dissents with opinion.
We decline to evaluate the dissent's original appellate research for purposes of resolving this case. See Jacksonville Elec. Auth. v. Dep't of Revenue , 486 So.2d 1350, 1354 n.10 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986) ("The inherent problem in reliance on original appellate research in what is essentially an evidentiary quest is that the appellate court does not have the benefit of the adversarial search for and scrutiny of the available information. It therefore appears inappropriate for an appellate court to rely on its own factfinding, without adversarial crosschecks .").
Regarding exclusion, we see no statutory or case-related basis for applying an exclusionary rule on the basis of requiring visible or other signs of impairment in addition to an accident. Test results have long been used in workers' compensation cases (and § 440.09(7)(b)'s presumption has been applied) in the absence of additional impairment evidence. See, e.g. , European Marble Co. v. Robinson , 885 So.2d 502, 504-505 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004) (recognizing that employers could use properly administered drug-test results from hospital tests conducted for medical purposes after an auto accident); Temp. Labor Source v. E.H. , 765 So.2d 757, 759 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000) (acknowledging that an emergency room drug test in the absence of other employer-originated suspicion could underlie an employer's § 440.09(7)(b) -based defense).