The Ohio Supreme Court has struck down a law allowing employers to deny workers' compensation to employees who refuse to take a drug test. The court ruled 4-3 that the law constituted an unreasonable search and seizure. The court also found that any special need asserted by the state for the testing was outweighed by Ohioans' right to privacy. The law said if employees refused to take a test after being injured on the job, they could legally be assumed to be intoxicated. While it did not require the tests, the court held the threat of losing benefits was a pretty serious incentive. "The rebuttable presumption created by the state is the hammer that forces an employer to take an employer-directed drug test," wrote Justice Paul Pfeifer in the majority opinion. Pfeifer and justices Andrew Douglas, Alice Robie Resnick and Francis Sweeney concurred with Wednesday's decision. Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Deborah Cook and Chief Justice Thomas Moyer dissented.

In his dissent, Moyer said the majority's reasoning was flawed and the court shouldn't have heard the case in the first place. The case was filed by the Ohio AFL-CIO against the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, with the union arguing the law might affect its members. Moyer wrote that opponents of the law should've found a specific case where the law caused harm before coming to the high court. The majority heard the case on the grounds that the union was protecting a public right. The unions request came in the form of a complaint for a writ of mandamus made directly to the Supreme Court. Such writs are considered extraordinary legal remedies. The majority opinion rejected state claims that the Ohio AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers did not have standing, or the legal right, to file the case.

Read the Supreme Court of Ohio's case summary.