Opinion ID: 525548
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Public Safety

Text: 23 In both Skinner and Von Raab, the Court held that the government's legitimate interest in protecting public safety could justify the suspicionless drug-testing of some employees. The Department contends that the duties of workers covered by the OBD Plan raise comparable public safety concerns. We do not agree. 24 Certainly a blunder by a Justice Department lawyer may lead, through a chain of ensuing circumstances, to a threat to public safety. That sort of indirect risk, however, is wholly different from the risk posed by a worker who carries a gun or operates a train. The Supreme Court in Von Raab emphasized that 25 Customs employees who may use deadly force plainly discharge duties fraught with such risks of injury to others that even a momentary lapse of attention can have disastrous consequences. [quoting Skinner, 109 S.Ct. at 1419] We agree with the Government that the public should not bear the risk that employees who may suffer from impaired perception and judgment will be promoted to positions where they may need to employ deadly force.... Because successful performance of their duties depends uniquely on their judgment and dexterity, those employees cannot reasonably expect to keep from the Service personal information that bears directly on their fitness. 26 109 S.Ct. at 1393, 1394. 27 The public safety rationale adopted in Von Raab and Skinner focused on the immediacy of the threat. The point was that a single slip-up by a gun-carrying agent or a train engineer may have irremediable consequences; the employee himself will have no chance to recognize and rectify his mistake, nor will other government personnel have an opportunity to intervene before the harm occurs. Von Raab provides no basis for extending this principle to the Justice Department, where the chain of causation between misconduct and injury is considerably more attenuated.