Opinion ID: 700634
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: willis's negligence claim

Text: 17 To recover under a negligence cause of action, Willis must establish that Roche owed a legal duty to him, and then, that Roche breached the duty and that Willis suffered damages proximately caused by the breach. See, e.g., Otis Engineering Corp. v. Clark, 668 S.W.2d 307, 312 (Tex.1983). The district court held that Roche owed no legal duty to Willis under Texas law to use reasonable care in its administration of the drug testing of Willis's urine sample. The district court found that Texas law was not sufficiently developed on the issue of a laboratory's liability for negligent drug testing for a federal court to make an Erie prediction, and thus the court was forced to rely on the law of negligence as it applies to physicians employed as independent contractors. With the benefit of a recent pronouncement from the Supreme Court of Texas, we now make the necessary Erie prediction. SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Doe, 903 S.W.2d 347 (Tex.1995). 18 In SmithKline, an employer rescinded a job offer because a pre-employment drug test revealed the presence of opiates in the plaintiff's urine. The plaintiff contended that the test result was caused by consumption of poppy seed muffins and not by use of any controlled substances. The employer informed Doe that her only recourse was to reapply for employment with the company in six months. She did and the company declined her re-application. 19 Doe sued, among others, the laboratory which conducted the testing, claiming that the laboratory owed her a duty to warn that poppy seeds could cause a positive test result. Reversing a court of appeals decision, the Supreme Court of Texas held that this duty did not exist. SmithKline, 903 S.W.2d at 348. The court recognized that SmithKline Beecham was an independent laboratory hired by the employer to conduct drug screening tests. The court did not consider the duties SmithKline Beecham owed the employer or the duties the employer may have owed Doe. Rather, the court focussed exclusively on the relationship between the laboratory and the person tested. SmithKline, 903 S.W.2d at 351. 20 The Texas high court noted that some jurisdictions had held that a laboratory owes a duty to persons tested to perform its services with reasonable care. Although distinguishing those decisions from the failure to warn claims before it, the court pointed out that whether an independent laboratory owes a duty of reasonable care is a question on which [n]o court of last resort has spoken. SmithKline, 903 S.W.2d at 352. In addition, the court seemed to question the soundness of the decisions finding such a duty. 2 Reviewing decisions in a related context, the Texas court also noted that the only court of last resort in any American jurisdiction to clearly consider the issue has held that no tort duty to use reasonable care should be imposed on polygraph test operators. SmithKline, 903 S.W.2d at 352 (citing Hall v. United Parcel Serv. of Am., 76 N.Y.2d 27, 556 N.Y.S.2d 21, 24-26, 555 N.E.2d 273, 276-78 (1990)). 21 Although the Supreme Court of Texas emphasized in SmithKline that it was not considering whether a drug testing laboratory has a duty to use reasonable care in performing tests and reporting results, we must consider what the court did say in determining what Texas law is. Recognizing the risks inherent in making an Erie guess, we find that under current Texas law, Roche owed Willis no duty of reasonable care in testing his urine for drugs.