Ross v. RagingWire Telecommunications
On September 7, 2005, the
Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District issued a published decision
denying a qualified medical marijuana patient any remedy for being terminated
from his/her employment simply for testing positive for marijuana. In Ross
v. Ragingwire Telecommunications, Inc., the court relied on federal law to
defeat Gary Ross' state law causes of action for wrongful termination in
violation of public policy and employment discrimination in violation of California's
Fair Employment and Housing Act. Hoping to overturn this discriminatory
decision, ASA joined the lawsuit as co-counsel, and on November 30, 2005, the California Supreme Court
(CSC) granted review. The opening brief
before the CSC was filed on February
7, 2006. Then, on July 25, 2006, three support (amicus) briefs were
filed on behalf of Ross: a medical-based
brief filed by ten local, state, and national organizations, inlcuding the
American Nurses Association; a legislative-based
brief filed by all of the original authors of SB 420; and a disability
rights brief filed by two prominent rights groups.
Unfortunately, on January 24, 2008, in a
5-2 opinion, the California Supreme Court narrowly construed
the Compassionate Use Act to rule in favor of the employer and hold that medical marijuana patients cannot
state civil causes of action for employment discrimination.In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Joyce
Kennard criticized the majority opinion for its lack of compassion and described
it as “disrespect[ing] the will of
California’s voters who, when they enacted the Compassionate Use Act, surely
never intended that persons who availed themselves of its provisions would
thereby disqualify themselves from employment.”
