FAA Must Review Cases Where Pilots Are Said to Refuse Drug Tests

The Federal Aviation Administration wrongfully outsourced to private air carriers inquiries into pilots who refuse drug tests, and is required to independently review carrier determinations, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

“Because the FAA concedes that it conducted no such review here, we hold that the agency arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its own procedures,” Judge Bradley N. Garcia said for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, partially granting a pilot’s petition for review. The panel remanded the case so the FAA can follow its “own procedures and conduct the necessary review” of the pilot Ryan Paul’s drug test incident.

Paul was a pilot for the cargo airline Amerijet International Inc. and was subject to random drug testing by law. Paul was off duty in Vietnam and was unable to return to the US ahead of a scheduled pilot duty date due a sinus infection. The airline asked him to take a same-day drug test in Seattle while he was still overseas.

After he explained that a same-day test wouldn’t be possible, the airline determined Paul refused the test and later fired him.

Paul and his legal counsel disputed the determination and were later told by the FAA that Amerijet made the test refusal determination and that the agency wouldn’t be pursuing any legal action against him.

Paul petitioned the the DC Circuit, asking it to vacate the FAA’s refusal finding, affirm its decision not to take enforcement action, compel the agency to remove records reflecting the refusal status, and direct it to advise Amerijet that Paul didn’t refuse the test within the meaning of federal testing regulations, the opinion said.

Neither Paul nor the FAA pointed to any statutory or regulatory provision that directly addresses whether it was permissible for Amerijet to handle the drug testing determination in lieu of the FAA, Garcia said. And the agencys internal guidance, which deems its drug abatement division as being responsible for making such determinations and evaluating whether subsequent action is required, can be construed to require the FAA to make that determination.

Conclusion or Allegation

Garcia also pointed out that the guidance treats an employer’s test refusal report as an allegation, which would make it “quite strange to label an unreviewable conclusion an ‘allegation.’”

This “reading is necessary to avoid serious constitutional questions raised by the FAA’s litigation position,” Garcia said.

The language in the FAA’s guidance plausibly means that its responsibility to either take or not take subsequent legal action reflects that the agency reviewed the employer’s allegation, Garcia said.

The DC Circuit declined to determine whether the FAA’s conduct violated the private nondelegation doctrine, a constitutional principle prohibiting Congress from delegating legislative power to private entities. The court also held it wouldn’t be proper to determine whether the FAA’s subsequent no-action determination against Paul was appropriate and ordered the FAA to address this matter on remand to agency proceedings.

Judges A. Raymond Randolph and J. Michelle Childs joined the opinion.

Randolph wrote in a concurring opinion that the DC Circuit didn’t need to look to statutes, regulations, or the FAA’s guidance to gauge constitutional concerns since the agency’s letter order to Paul could have been appealed to an administrative law judge since it was a reviewable modification to the pilot’s medical certificate. He also said the nondelegation doctrine wasn’t at play but nonetheless agreed with the decision to remand the proceedings.

Air Line Pilots Association International represents Paul.

The case is Paul v. FAA, D.C. Cir., No. 24-01348, 2/27/26.