On April 11, 2025, a federal judge for the U.S. Western District of Pennsylvania reversed his recent decision to dismiss a disability discrimination claim from a job applicant with a medical marijuana card who alleged he had a job offer rescinded following a pre-employment drug screen.
Quick Hits
- A federal judge reinstated a disability discrimination claim after a job applicant with a medical marijuana card alleged that his job offer was rescinded without proper consideration of reasonable accommodations for his underlying medical conditions.
- The judge had previously dismissed the disability discrimination claim after finding that status as a medical marijuana cardholder was not a qualifying disability.
- The ruling underscores the legal uncertainty surrounding the protection of employees' lawful medical marijuana use under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.
While considering a motion to certify an appeal, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville reversed his March 2025 dismissal of a disability discrimination claim under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) brought by a job applicant who alleged a construction company failed to accommodate his medical marijuana use.
Judge Colville said he had “failed to give due consideration” to the allegation the employer did not discuss any reasonable accommodations for the job applicant's disability other than his medical marijuana use.
The plaintiff, Brian Davis, alleged that Albert M. Higley Company, LLC, rescinded the job offer for a project engineer position following a pre-employment drug screen. Davis alleged that he was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and was certified to use medical marijuana to treat the conditions along with other prescription drugs.
On March 7, 2025, Judge Colville dismissed Davis's claim for disability discrimination under the PHRA. Still, the judge allowed the suit to continue on a separate claim that the company refused to hire him in violation of Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (MMA).
In that ruling, Judge Colville stated he was “constrained” by the 2020 Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decision in Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) v. Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission, which held the PHRA does not require accommodation of an individual's legal medical marijuana use because it is not a qualified disability.
The ruling was significant in that it was potentially the first instance of a federal court finding that lawful medical marijuana use was not a qualifying disability under the PHRA.
However, in his latest decision, Judge Colville declined to certify the issue for an immediate appeal. Instead, he reinstated the disability discrimination claim “to the extent that it asserts that Defendant failed to engage in the interactive process in good faith by failing to discuss or consider reasonable accommodations other than Plaintiff's marijuana use.” (Emphasis in the original.)
“To be clear, the Court did not hold that an individual with a disability who is also a medical marijuana user is not entitled to any reasonable accommodation for their disability under the PHRA,” Judge Colville said. “Rather, the Court simply held that continued marijuana use is not a reasonable accommodation under the PHRA.” (Emphasis in the original.)
Notably, the judge said the job applicant had support in a 2020 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Hudnell v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Inc., which had allowed a similar claim to continue where a plaintiff had “alleged a disability apart from her medical marijuana use.”
Judge Colville said that even if the PHRA does not require off-duty marijuana use as an accommodation, the allegations were that the company “summarily rescinded its offer of employment” without exploring various other potential accommodations. Therefore, the company potentially failed to engage in the required interactive process under the PHRA.
“The Court believes that the issue of good faith is a factual question that cannot be resolved at this time,” Judge Colville said.
Next Steps
Judge Colville's reversal highlights the legal uncertainty around whether employees' lawful, off-duty medical marijuana use is protected under the PHRA. Several courts have allowed disability discrimination claims for medical marijuana under the PHRA to continue. However, the recent ruling suggests that such claims may only be able to proceed if the medical marijuana use is simply indicative of a separate qualified disability that employers have an obligation to reasonably accommodate. Judge Colville maintained that medical marijuana use itself is not a reasonable accommodation and denied an immediate appeal on that issue.
As such, employers may want to review their drug testing and accommodations policies regarding medical marijuana cardholders in Pennsylvania. Additionally, employers may want to consider engaging in an interactive process with employees who are medical marijuana cardholders, at least to gauge the extent to which there may be another reasonable accommodation for an employee or job applicant with a qualifying disability aside from medical marijuana use.
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