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Kellogg Brown & Root (Canada) Co Wins Alberta Court Approval for its Drug-Testing Policy |
A provincial appeals court approved the drug testing hiring policy used by KBR Inc., the U.S. engineering company that split from Halliburton Co., overturning a lower court decision that the practice was discriminatory.
| KBR, which helped expand Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s plant in Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2002, refused to hire a man after he tested positively for having smoked marijuana. The Court of Queen's Bench Judge Sheilah Martin ruled in May 2006 that KBR's policy imposed a barrier to people with disabilities. |  | A three-member panel of the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled Dec. 28 the applicant, John Chiasson, was a casual user of marijuana and not disabled.
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KBR's policy is to maintain a safe workplace, no different from a taxi company that requires drivers to refrain from drinking alcohol before work, the court said.
``Extending human rights protections to situations resulting in placing the lives of others at risk flies in the face of logic,'' Judge Elizabeth McFadyen wrote on behalf of the appeal panel.
Houston-based KBR had the support of other employers mining Alberta oil sands for oil including Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Nexen Inc., as well as the Mining Association of British Columbia and the Coal Association of Canada, all of whom intervened in the case.
The case is Between The Director of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and Kellogg Brown & Root (Canada) Co., 0601-0281-AC, Court of Appeal of Alberta (Calgary.)
| Bloomberg News
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