Cocaine-Dealing Worker Should Stay Fired, Costco Tells 9th Cir.

Costco Wholesale Corp. wants an arbitrator’s order reinstating a forklift driver fired after being caught dealing drugs at work overturned.

The trial judge upheld the arbitrator’s order in March, concluding that the public policy against workplace drug abuse wasn’t sufficiently explicit or well-defined to overcome the deference courts must give to arbitrators. He cited a U.S. Supreme Court opinion from 2000 holding it wasn’t against public policy to force a company to reinstate a worker in a safety-sensitive position who had failed two drug tests for marijuana.

But here, Costco employee James Diaz was caught on CCTV footage dealing cocaine ...