{"id":88,"date":"2017-07-21T12:30:24","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T17:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/?p=88"},"modified":"2017-07-27T13:26:45","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T18:26:45","slug":"massachusetts-court-finds-employers-must-accommodate-employees-off-duty-medical-marijuana-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/2017\/07\/massachusetts-court-finds-employers-must-accommodate-employees-off-duty-medical-marijuana-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts court finds employers must accommodate employee\u2019s off-duty medical marijuana use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Massachusetts\u2019 highest court has ruled that employers have a duty to accommodate their employees\u2019 off-duty use of medical marijuana. \u00a0The ruling in <a href=\"https:\/\/perma.cc\/E6KZ-6YPX\" target=\"_blank\">Barbuto v. Advantage Sales and Marketing, LLC (Mass. 2017)<\/a>, concerned\u00a0a state handicap discrimination law (similar to the ADA) which makes it unlawful for any employer<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;padding-left: 30px\">\u201cto dismiss or refuse to hire . . ., because of [her] handicap, any person . . . capable of performing the essential functions of the position involved with reasonable accommodation, unless the employer can demonstrate that the accommodation required . . . would impose an undue hardship to the employer\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Barbuto<\/em> is significant because it is one of the first decisions (if not <em>the<\/em> first decision) to interpret a generic anti-discrimination statute to cover\u00a0marijuana users. As discussed in Chapter 13 (p. 662-72), a handful of states have passed legislation that <em>expressly<\/em> requires employers to accommodate lawful medical marijuana use. But courts have generally refrained from finding any such duty <em>implied<\/em> by medical marijuana reforms or by anti-discrimination laws that cover the use of other drugs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Importantly, there are some limitations on the decision. The <em>Barbuto<\/em> court noted that employers had no duty to accommodate marijuana use on-the-job, or to accommodate off-duty marijuana use when doing so imposes an undue hardship on the employer \u2013 say, because of legitimate safety concerns. \u00a0Also, interestingly, the court noted that the defendant-employer in <em>Barbuto<\/em> had waived any claim that the duty to accommodate marijuana use is preempted by federal law (see n. 9 on page 17 of the opinion). This may have been a mistake, because, as discussed in Chapter 13 (p. 672-680), other courts have concluded (though perhaps erroneously) state law is\u00a0preempted to the extent it requires private employers to accommodate marijuana use which is forbidden by\u00a0federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Massachusetts\u2019 highest court has ruled that employers have a duty to accommodate their employees\u2019 off-duty use of medical marijuana. \u00a0The ruling in Barbuto v. Advantage Sales and Marketing, LLC (Mass. 2017), concerned\u00a0a state handicap discrimination law (similar to the ADA) which makes it unlawful for any employer \u201cto dismiss or refuse to hire . &#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6789,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[6,9,7,5,10,8],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-updates","tag-cannabis","tag-discrimination","tag-employment","tag-marijuana","tag-massachusetts","tag-third-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6789"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}