Opinion ID: 12443
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Special needs situations

Text: 36 Special needs for these purposes have been found in a variety of circumstances, including [t]he Government's interest in regulating the conduct of railroad employees to ensure safety ... its supervision of probationers or regulated industries, ... [and] its operation of a government office ... [or] school. Skinner at 620, 109 S.Ct. at 1415. And in Von Raab such a special need was found respecting drug testing of Customs Service employees who would be required to either carry firearms or engage in drug interdiction, the Court observing the Government's need to discover such latent or hidden conditions, or to prevent their development, is sufficiently compelling to justify the intrusion on privacy entailed by conducting such searches without any measure of individualized suspicion. Id. at 668, 109 S.Ct. at 1392 (emphasis added). This was so despite the fact that there was no perceived drug problem among Customs employees. Id. at 673, 109 S.Ct. at 1395. 37 On the other hand, it is clear that where the need is in essence simply symbolic--the desire to project a public image--it is not a special need for these purposes. Chandler at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 1305. 38 Plainly, this is a special needs case. It is clear that the instant challenged search was not designed to serve the ordinary needs of law enforcement, Von Raab at 666, 109 S.Ct. at 1391, and no law enforcement personnel were in any way involved. The present setting not only involves the practice of medicine, an endeavor subject to extensive governmental regulation, but also both a student-school and an employee-supervisor relationship. Dr. Pierce was undergoing training in the medical school's emergency medicine residency program, and was in essence both a student and an employee providing professional services to the public. In the case of searches conducted by a public employer, we must balance the invasion of the employees' legitimate expectations of privacy against the government's need for supervision, control, and the efficient operation of the workplace. O'Connor at 719-20, 107 S.Ct. at 1499. What the Court said of the railroad employees in Skinner is true in spades as to Dr. Pierce, practicing and learning emergency medicine, namely that she discharge[d] duties fraught with such risks of injury to others that even a momentary lapse of attention can have disastrous consequences. Id. at 628, 109 S.Ct. at 1419. 9 Likewise, the substantial need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools is a special need such that the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. T.L.O. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 742.