Question

Fact Pattern 1:

Your company provides a service to local businesses wherein office supplies are delivered daily on demand to the local area. Your son's friend is looking for work and you know him well and hire him on the spot to be a delivery driver. A few weeks later he is in the process of making a delivery and hits a pedestrian crossing the street severely injuring him. Police come and measure his blood alcohol at .15 (nearly twice the legal limit). Turns out that your son's friend was previously convicted of DUI approximately 6 months ago. You did not conduct a background check before hiring. On what basis/bases would the pedestrian have the ability to file suit against the company?

Fact Pattern 2:

A company recently opened a branch office in Colorado (where recreational marijuana is legal). The company has a policy of drug testing every new applicant before hiring. What are the potential pitfalls of this policy? Are there concerns regarding policy? Does this affect the potential applicant pool?

Answer 1

Fact 1 -

The pedestrian can file suit against the company on the ground that the person who hit him, was the employee of the company and was on his job of making deliveries while the accident happened, thereby making the employer liable for the action of employee while on job. The other ground for filing suit was that the company failed to exercise care while hiring someone who could have put the lives of the people whom he came in contact while making deliveries , owing to his dangerous habits of being drunk while driving. By not conducting drug test and background check of the employee, the company breached its duty of care towards everyone its employee came in contact with, while on duty, and is liable for it.

Fact 2 -

The biggest pitfall of the policy is that occasional users of marijuana for recreational use would be unfit for any job in the company. This would exclude everyone who has ever consumed it. This would be troublesome for the employer, as the act is perfectly vald in the eyes of law and might attract lawsuit from potential applicants who are not hired due to drug use. The other issue is that company would have a hard time finding the right employees for the office. The policy is not in the general interests of the company because it will be forced to hire substandard applicants who have only one virtue ( of not using the drug), and might be much more inferior to the otherwise able candidates who stand rejected owing to their habit of using drug.This is going to affect the productivity as well as efficiency of the company, which will also affect the overall performance of the company in the long run. The pool of eligible candidates available for hiring is likely to be small and the company would have few choices for each position, often leading to selection of unworthy candidates.