Railroad Worker to Get Breach of Privacy Trial Over Drug Testing

A jury must decide whether Illinois Central Railroad Co. violated state privacy law when it required a clerk and material handler to undergo 36 months of direct-observation urine testing for drugs after he tested positive for marijuana during pool testing of workers in safety-sensitive jobs, a federal judge in Chicago ruled.

The last two follow-up tests Mark Skiba was subjected to were nondirect observation, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said. To avoid direct observation, he agreed to be forever disqualified from holding a safety-sensitive job with the Canadian National Railway Co. subsidiary, the court said. ...