Federal court rules FAA must review airline drug test refusal calls

What happened next is where the story gets instructive for anyone in HR. 

Two days after that determination, Amerijet notified the FAA of Paul’s alleged refusal. Five days after that, Amerijet terminated his employment. According to Paul, Amerijet also reported his test-refusal status to a federal database that prospective aviation employers are legally required to consult before hiring any pilot. Federal rules also kicked in, barring Paul from performing any safety-sensitive duties for any employer until he completed a government-mandated evaluation and treatment process and obtained a new medical certificate. All of this flowed directly from his employer’s call – before any government agency had independently weighed in. 

The FAA eventually told Paul it would not take enforcement action against him, but it simultaneously treated his employer’s refusal determination as a done deal, pointing him to the return-to-duty requirements as though the matter were settled. When Paul pushed back, the agency told him plainly that refusal determinations are made by the employer, not the FAA. 

Paul took the matter to court, and the appeals court sided with him – at least in part. 

The court found that the FAA’s own internal guidance – a document called the Drug and Alcohol Compliance and Enforcement Surveillance Handbook – plausibly requires the agency to independently review an employer’s drug test refusal determination before treating it as final. By failing to conduct that review entirely, the court said, the FAA had acted arbitrarily and capriciously, departing from its own procedures.