Brandon Coats Case: Court Rules Pot Smokers Can Be Fired From Their Jobs, Even In Medical Cases, Federal Law Trumps State Law, Colorado

Although medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but the court ruled, on Thursday, that employers can legally fire workers who test positive for having smoked the drug, even if it was smoked off duty.

The case concerned a man named Brandon Coats, who had been rendered quadriplegic after being in  a car accident and qualified for Colorado's medical marijuana program, according to the International Business Times.  Coats had worked for Dish Network and he was fired from the company after testing positive for marijuana use.

Coats told reporters with The Associated Press that he has obtained a prescription for medical marijuana to deal with debilitating muscle spasms that would otherwise prevent him from working and he has been looking for another job ever since he was tired from Dish Network.

Coats sued Dish Network to try and regain his job and he argued that Colorado law protected him from bring fired for engaging in lawful activities outside of the workplace.

"I'm not going to get better anytime soon," said Coats, according to the AP. "I need the marijuana, and I don't want to go the rest of my life without holding a job."

District court, however, ruled against Coats, stating that Dish was able to terminate Coats due to federal laws against marijuana.

"For an activity to be lawful in Colorado, it must be permitted by, and not contrary to, both state and federal law," the appeals court stated in its 2-1 conclusion, according to the AP.

[W]hile we agree that the general purpose of [the worker protection law] ... is to keep an employer's proverbial nose out of an employee's off-site off-hours business ... we can find no legislative intent to extend employment protections to those engaged in activities that violate federal law," Judge Janice Davidson wrote in the majority opinion, according to IBT.

Being that the federal government continues to classify the drug as illegal, this ruling allows no protection of medical marijuana users with state employment, the AP reports.Colorado is one of 20 states and the District of Columbia that allows the use of medical pot after voters in Colorado and Washington state both legalized the use of recreational marijuana last November, Reuters reports.

U.S. officials have said that the federal government considers pot to be a narcotic that is both illegal and dangerous and they are considering how to respond and movements toward legalization occur, according to Reuters.

This case follows similar decisions made by courts in Washington and California and has been taken into account by employment lawyers in regards to implications for medical and recreational pot users, Reuters reports.

Based on this ruling, employees who use pot in Colorado do so at their own risk, reports the AP. In Arizona, however, workers cannot be terminated for lawfully using medical marijuana, unless it would jeopardize an employer's federal licensing or contracts.

Judge John Webb argued in a dissenting opinion saying that because the Colorado law makes no mention of either state or federal law, the statute is ambiguous and as such the courts should defer to state law, according to Reuters.  "Narrowing the scope of employee protection by looking beyond state law to activities that are proscribed only at the federal law would limit this protection," he said.

"This case not only impacts Mr. Coats, but also some 127,816 medical marijuana patient-employees in Colorado who could be summarily terminated even if they are in legal compliance with Colorado state law," Michael Evans, Coats' attorney said, according to the AP.

Coats was disappointed by the ruling, however, he and his lawyer have stated that they will take the case as high as the Colorado Supreme Court, IBT reports.

"If someone's going to pick a fight with the federal government, it will be the state supreme court and not the court of appeals," Evans said according to Reuters.