S-4005               _______________________________________________

                                                   SENATE BILL NO. 6224

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              50th Legislature                              1988 Regular Session

By Senator Pullen

Read first time 1/14/88 and referred to Committee on Law & Justice.

AN ACT Relating to drug testing in the workplace; adding a new section to chapter 49.44 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.     The legislature finds that drug testing often falsely registers the presence of chemical substances in the body of the donor.  These test results are known as false positives.  The legislature also finds that false positive test results cause substantial emotional distress and damage to the reputation and career of the donor.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  A new section is added to chapter 49.44 RCW to read as follows:

          (1) If an employer has employees tested for the presence of drugs and a person is terminated or disciplined because of a false positive result, the employer shall be strictly liable, without regard to fault, for:

          (a) Economic loss including, but not limited to, lost wages and funds expended in the search for new employment;

          (b) Pain and suffering; and

          (c) Damage to reputation and career which shall be separate from or in addition to damages for pain and suffering.

          (2) "False positive" means a test result which is positive for the presence of the drug in question when, in fact, that drug was not present at the time of analysis.  A false positive may be caused by many factors including, but not limited to, interfering substances, specimen mix-up, analytical error, and reporting error.