Opinion ID: 3010828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the constitutionality of

Text: DIRECT OBSERVATION The gravamen of the plaintiffs' complaint is that the direct observation method of urine collection violates the firefighters' right under the Fourth Amendment, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The district court held that the direct observation method, as executed by SODAT, 9 did not constitute an unreasonable search. Because the reasonableness of a search under the Fourth Amendment is an issue of law, we exercise plenary review. See Bolden, 953 F.2d at 822-23 n.23; Dykes v. SEPTA, 68 F.3d 1564, 1568 (3d Cir. 1995). The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. Amend. IV. It is well established that the government's collection and testing of an employee's urine constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U.S. 602, 617; Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665 (1989). Ordinarily, the Constitution requires the government to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause to search a person or his property. There are, however, several well-established exceptions to the warrant and probable cause requirements. The Supreme Court has explained: [O]ur cases establish that where a Fourth Amendment intrusion serves special government 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 individualized suspicion in the particular context. Von Rabb, 489 U.S. at 665-66. See also Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987); New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 340 (1985). Under the special needs analysis, the government need not show probable cause or even individualized suspicion for its search. Instead, it must prove that its search meets a general test of reasonableness. Under this standard, the constitutionality of a particular search  `is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.'  Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619 (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654 (1979)). In particular, the Supreme Court's jurisprudence directs us to consider three factors when judging the constitutionality of employee drug tests: (1) the nature of the privacy interest upon which the search intrudes; (2) the extent to which the search intrudes on the 10 employee's privacy; and (3) the nature and immediacy of the governmental concern at issue, and the efficacy of the means employed by the government for meeting that concern. Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 115 S.Ct. 2386 (1995). The firefighters do not dispute the reasonableness of compulsory drug testing per se. To the contrary, the firefighters have agreed to drug testing in their Collective Bargaining Agreement with the City. Rather, the plaintiffs challenge the City's method of testing, which entails visual observation of the firefighters as they provide their urine samples. This issue has been described as distinct and clearly severable from those that govern reasonable suspicion testing generally. National Treasury Employees Union v. Yeutter, 918 F.2d 968, 975 (D.C. Cir. 1990). For this reason, we apply the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness test solely to the direct observation method utilized by SODAT and not to the broader issue of compulsory drug testing. See id.3 A. The Nature of the Firefighters' Privacy Interest Reasonableness entails a three pronged inquiry. First, a court examines the individual's privacy interest upon which the search at issue allegedly intrudes. See Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2391 (1995). This expectation of privacy must be legitimate as measured by objective standards. The Fourth Amendment does not protect all subjective expectations of privacy, but only those that society recognizes as `legitimate.'  Id. The district court properly concluded that firefighters enjoy only a diminished expectation of privacy. Because they are in a highly regulated industry, and because they had consented to random testing in their collective bargaining agreement, the firefighters had a reduced privacy interest. Wilcher, 924 F.Supp. at 618. Plaintiffs now argue on appeal that the firefighting industry is not _________________________________________________________________ 3. Because it is the method of testing, rather than the fact of testing, which is at issue, we do not find that appellants' post-argument citation to Chandler v. Miller, 117 S.Ct. 1295 (1997), is helpful to our considerations here. 11 highly regulated and that the firefighters therefore did not have a diminished expectation of privacy. Plaintiffs' argument lacks merit. Even though extensive regulation of an industry may diminish an employee's expectation of privacy, see Policemen's Benevolent Ass'n, Local 318 v. Township of Washington, 850 F.2d 133 (3d Cir. 1988) (police department described as highly regulated); Shoemaker v. Handel, 795 F.2d 1136 (3d Cir. 1986) (upholding law requiring jockeys to submit to breathalyser and random urinalysis testing), we have never held that regulation alone is the sole factor that determines the scope of an employee's expectation of privacy. It is also the safety concerns associated with a particular type of employment -- especially those concerns that are well-known to prospective employees -- which diminish an employee's expectation of privacy. Supreme Court precedent demonstrates this principle. In National Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, the Court held that a government employee's expectation of privacy depended in part on the nature of his employment and whether it posed an attendant threat to public safety. See 489 U.S. at 672. Upholding the drug testing of customs officials, the Court explained: We think Customs employees who are directly involved in the interdiction of illegal drugs or who are required to carry firearms in the line of duty likewise have a diminished expectation of privacy in respect to the intrusions occasioned by a urine test. Unlike most private citizens or government employees in general, employees involved in drug interdiction reasonably should expect effective inquiry into their fitness and probity . . . . Because successful performance of their duties depends uniquely on their judgment and dexterity, these employees cannot reasonably expect to keep . . . personal information that bears directly on their fitness. Id. (emphasis added). Customs officials enjoyed a reduced expectation of privacy because of the sensitive nature of their duties and of the information they received. We have held that railway employees also enjoy a diminished expectation of privacy because of the safety concerns 12 associated with those who operate trains. See e.g. Transport Workers' Union, Local 234 v. SEPTA, 884 F.2d 709, 712 (3d Cir. 1988) (random testing of rail operators upheld because of great human loss they can cause prior to detection of drug problem). Certainly, a firefighter with a drug problem poses as great a threat to public safety as does a customs official or a rail operator. A firefighter whose drug use is undetected is a source of danger both to his colleagues and to the community at large. In addition, the firefighter puts himself at great risk of harm. Since the perils associated with firefighting are well known, we have no trouble concluding that firefighters enjoy a diminished expectation of privacy. Our inquiry, however, does not end here, as we must balance the firefighters' diminished interest with the character of the search at issue and with the concerns that have propelled that search. B. The Character of the Search The second factor we must consider is the character of the government's search and the extent to which it intrudes on the employee's privacy. The Supreme Court has held that the degree of intrusion depends upon the manner in which production of the urine sample is monitored. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2393. Before we judge the intrusiveness of SODAT's drug testing method, however, we must first determine what that method actually entails. At trial and on appeal, both the plaintiffs and the SODAT employees have presented highly divergent pictures of the urine collection process. The firefighters claim that monitors looked at their genitalia as they urinated. SODAT and its employees, on the other hand, steadfastly maintain that they did not focus on the firefighters' genitalia during the urine collection process. Instead, they claim that they looked in the firefighters' general direction to ensure that no tampering was taking place during the production of the urine specimen. Based on the evidence before it, the trial court concluded that SODAT's drug testing procedure involved only the monitors' direct observation of the urine collection process in general and not the intentional observation of the 13 firefighters' genitalia. Wilcher, 924 F. Supp. at 617-18. We accept as accurate the district court's finding of fact concerning the nature of the urine collection process employed by SODAT. Although the reasonableness of a search is a legal question, the particular character of that search is a factual matter. Cf. O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 726-729 (factual dispute regarding character of search precluded lower court's grant of summary judgment on Fourth Amendment issue). As such, the trial judge's factual finding regarding the character of SODAT's drug testing procedure is reversible only if it is clearly erroneous. See Marco v. Accent Pub. Co., Inc., 969 F.2d 1547, 1548 (3d Cir. 1992). In light of the nature of the testimony from the SODAT employees, which the trial judge chose to credit, we cannot say that the district court's finding was clearly erroneous.4 Consequently, we will adopt the district court's description of the SODAT procedure as one which entails only incidental observation of a firefighters' genitals. Having adopted the district court's description of the SODAT drug-testing procedure, we must concede that the direct observation method represents a significant intrusion on the privacy of any government employee. Urination has been regarded traditionally by our society as a matter shielded by great privacy. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 626; 109 S.Ct. at 1418. Few cases have dealt with the issue of the specific method used by the government to test its employees for drugs. In Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a mandatory random drug testing program that a school district employed to reduce drug use among its student athletes. The Court described the Vernonia drug testing procedure in the following manner: The student to be tested completes a specimen control form which bears an assigned number. . . . The student then enters an empty locker room accompanied by an adult monitor of the same sex. Each boy selected produces a sample at a urinal, _________________________________________________________________ 4. In addition, we note the concession of plaintiffs' attorney at oral argument that she was not seeking reversal of the trial court's factual findings. 14 remaining fully clothed with his back to the monitor, who stands approximately 12 to 15 feet behind the student. Monitors may (though do not always) watch the student while he produces the sample, and they listen for normal sounds of urination. Girls produce samples in an enclosed bathroom stall, so that they can be heard but not observed. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2389. The Supreme Court concluded that this method of testing was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Under such conditions, the privacy interests compromised by the process of obtaining the urine sample are in our view negligible. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2393. Relying on Vernonia, the district court stated, The Court finds the SODAT collection method no more intrusive on the firefighters' privacy than was the high school's drug testing program found to be constitutional in [Vernonia] Wilcher, 924 F. Supp. at 618. The district court further concluded, The presence of monitors in the bathrooms with firefighters is similar to the presence of the monitors in Vernonia, and even though the monitors may have stood closer than those in Vernonia, this close proximity was a result of the collection facilities, in this case a bathroom as opposed to a locker room, and not a more intrusive method. Wilcher, 984 F.Supp. at 619. We agree with the district court insofar as its analogy to Vernonia applies to male firefighters. In a world where men frequently urinate at exposed urinals in public restrooms, it is difficult to characterize SODAT's procedure as a significant intrusion on the male firefighters' privacy.5 Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate how the presence of a monitor in a boys locker room while a student athlete urinates differs significantly from the presence of a monitor in a bathroom while an adult firefighter urinates. Both monitors stand behind the individual providing the urine specimen. Similarly, as the district court found, both monitors observe only the collection process generally and not the particular _________________________________________________________________ 5. See also Dimeo v. Griffin, 943 F.2d 679, 682 (7th Cir. 1991) (noting that [u]rination is generally a private activity in our culture, though, for most men, not highly private.) 15 individual's genitalia. The only difference is the distance between the monitor and the person producing the specimen. We cannot conclude that this difference by itself justifies a determination that SODAT procedure is unreasonable.6 We must admit that we are more cautious about the reasonableness of the direct observation method as it applies to female firefighters. We simply cannot characterize the presence of a monitor in a bathroom while a female urinates as an ordinary aspect of daily life. Indeed, Vernonia noted with approval the fact that female student athletes provided urine behind a stall as monitors stood outside listening. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2393. Nevertheless, nothing in Vernonia suggests that the presence of a female monitor in a bathroom when an adult female firefighter provides a urine specimen is per se unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the facts of this case suggest that SODAT took substantial measures to minimize the intrusion of privacy to female firefighters caused by the direct observation procedure. The district court found that the female monitors stood to the side of the female firefighters and that the monitors did not look at the firefighters' genitalia as they urinated, but rather in their general direction. Wilcher, 924 F.Supp. at 617-18. Finally, SODAT provided a nurse-practitioner as a monitor for plaintiff Wilcher when she expressed discomfort with her first female monitor. Thus, although wefind SODAT's intrusion of the female firefighters' privacy to be significant, we nevertheless agree with the defendants that SODAT has carried out its testing procedure in an appropriate and professional manner. C. The Governmental Concern The third and final component of the reasonableness test under the Fourth Amendment is the government's _________________________________________________________________ 6. We note that our conclusion might differ had the district court accepted the firefighters' testimony that SODAT's monitors looked over firefighters' shoulders as they provided their urine specimens. Similarly, we would be much more concerned with a procedure's intrusion on privacy if it required the monitor to stand in front of the firefighter, or if it demanded the direct observation of the firefighter's genitalia. 16 interest, which must be compelling. With regard to this prong, the Supreme Court has observed: It is a mistake . . . to think that the phrase `compelling state interest,' in the Fourth Amendment context, describes a fixed, minimum quantum of governmental concern, so that one can dispose of a case by answering in isolation the question: Is there a compelling state interest here? Rather, the phrase describes an interest which appears important enough to justify the particular search at hand, in light of other factors which show the search to be relatively intrusive upon a genuine expectation of privacy. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2394-95. Thus, compelling interest does not have the same meaning in this context as it does in other areas of constitutional law. Moreover, the fact that there exists a less intrusive method of achieving the government's goal is not relevant to the Court's reasonableness analysis under the Fourth Amendment. Vernonia, 115 S.Ct. at 2396. See also Skinner, 489 U.S. at 629 n.9; Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 647 (1983). In this case, we do not review the constitutionality of drug-testing per se, but rather, the procedure by which firefighters are tested. According to the City and to SODAT, visual observation is necessary to prevent cheating. At trial, the defendants' expert, Dr. Closson, testified that visual monitoring is necessary to catch employees who attempt to fool the test by substituting someone else's urine or adding a chemical adulterant to their own urine. On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that cheating can be detected by testing the urine's temperature since substitutes make the specimen colder than it should be. According to Dr. Closson, a forensic toxicologist, cheaters still can avoid detection by warming substitute urine through a heating pack hidden on their body, or by keeping the urine close to their body so that it takes on the body's temperature. Closson further maintained that direct observation was the most accurate collection method for ensuring the integrity of a urine sample. Finally, Closson testified that direct observation procedures are used by the New York City Police Department, the New York City 17 Department of Corrections, and several other New York agencies. Like the district court, we find the defendants' expert testimony persuasive. Cheating is a significant concern. The City understandably wishes to take as many steps as possible to eliminate potential violations of the drug testing program. The plaintiffs argue that the cheating described by Dr. Closson is unlikely, as Wilmington firefighters do not receive notice that they are to be tested until the day of the test, and they remain in the company of a superior officer from the moment they are notified of the test until the time that they actually provide their urine specimen. Although this argument is strong, it does not prove that the incidences of cheating, described by Dr. Closson, are impossible or even implausible. Although such cheating calls for fairly sophisticated equipment, it is possible for a firefighter with a drug problem to carry a catheter or an artificial bladder taped to his body on the days following drug use, just in case he is tested on that day. Indeed, Dr. Closson stated that cheating has been known to take place within the New York agencies, which use the direct observation method. Under Supreme Court jurisprudence, the City of Wilmington need not wait for a cheating problem to develop in order to justify its use of direct observation. In Von Raab, for example, Justice Scalia noted that the Supreme Court upheld random mandatory drug testing of customs officials, even though there existed no evidence of a history of drug abuse among those government employees. See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 679 (Scalia, dissenting). Moreover, the fact that there exists a less intrusive method of achieving the government's goal is not relevant to the Court's Fourth Amendment analysis. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 629 n.9; Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 647 (1983). Finally, we do not agree with the plaintiffs' argument that SODAT renders its direct observation procedure ineffective (and thereby unnecessary) by directing monitors not to look at the firefighters' genitals. Certainly, the mere presence of a monitor in the room where the firefighter is urinating deters a would-be-cheater from substituting or adulterating his own urine sample. Thus, we must agree with the 18 district court that the direct observation procedure serves the government's interest of preventing cheating on drug tests. Because we find that SODAT's direct observation method, as described in the district court's findings of fact, meets the three elements of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness test, we hold that the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights have not been violated.7 The City's significant interest in preserving the integrity of its firefighters' drug tests outweighs their expectations of privacy. With regard to the male firefighters, the conditions created by SODAT do not differ significantly from the conditions present in an ordinary public restroom. As for the female firefighters, we note the district court's finding that SODAT has taken several steps to minimize the potentially intrusive effects of having a person present in the same room during the collection of a femalefirefighter's urine. So long as SODAT's monitors refrain from looking at the firefighters' genitalia, its direct observation procedure remains within the boundaries of a constitutional search. Accordingly, the district court did not err when it ruled in the defendants' favor on the issue of constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment.8