Georgia has strict rules when it comes to impairment in the workplace.
Simply put, intoxication is not allowed. This applies to both alcohol and illegal drug use, including marijuana. Many businesses prominently display signs that assert that their business is a drug- and alcohol-free zone. If an employer determines that one of their employees is intoxicated on the job, it can lead to immediate termination.
Being impaired on the job can also lead to a denial of a worker’s compensation claim. However, it’s important to understand:
In Georgia, simply being impaired is NOT enough to outright deny a worker’s compensation claim after an injury.
In this blog, we’ll explain what an employer needs to do to prove you were impaired at the time of an injury and when they can and can’t use that proof to deny your workers’ comp benefits.
When can an employer deny Georgia workers’ comp benefits for alcohol or marijuana use?
To have a valid affirmative defense to an on-the-job injury due to intoxication, an employer must prove 2 things.
First, they must prove that the injured worker was impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident. This standard is specific. So even if the injured worker was intoxicated at an earlier or later point, they may still be eligible for workers’ compensation. Rather, the employer must prove that the worker was intoxicated when the accident occurred.
Second, the employer must prove that the impairment helped cause the accident. For example, if a construction worker was injured while drunk at work after losing their balance and falling off a roof due to their intoxication, this may constitute causation. As a result, any subsequent injury resulting from the fall can be properly denied from a workers’ compensation perspective.
Georgia requirements for proving a worker was impaired at the time of their injury
After an on-the-job injury, an employer can prove someone was intoxicated at the time of the incident either through eyewitness accounts or a drug test.
In fact, the first thing that many employers require injured workers to do after they report an injury is take a drug test. Georgia law requires that the test be performed within 8 hours of the injury for the “rebuttable presumption” that the injured worker was intoxicated at the time of the accident to apply.
In other words, if you failed a drug test for work but were given the test more than 8 hours after your accident or injury, the test results alone are not a valid reason to deny your workers’ compensation benefits.
Can I lose my workers’ comp benefits if I test positive for marijuana in Georgia?
In some cases, yes. Getting high at work is essentially viewed the same as getting drunk. This means that if you suffer an injury at work and your employer proves through a positive drug test that you had marijuana in your system and it contributed to the accident, they can legally deny you workers’ comp benefits.
One problem with this is that marijuana can remain in your body and show up on a drug test long after you use it. With urine tests, for example, marijuana can be detected for up to a month after use.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why some states like Kansas are trying to change the role that marijuana plays in the workers’ compensation system by proposing laws that would remove it from the list of banned substances in the workplace. Such proposed laws would alter the impairment list and eliminate the conclusive presumption that injured workers who test positive for certain levels of drugs following an injury are not entitled to workers’ compensation.
To be clear, Georgia has not yet taken this step, and recreational marijuana is still illegal in Georgia.
However, there is a movement to legalize marijuana in the state, and doing so would have consequences in the workers’ compensation arena. If such a law were to pass, an individual who tests positive for marijuana after an accident would no longer be considered “impaired.”
Denied workers’ comp in Georgia after testing positive for marijuana? We can help!
If you have any questions about your right to workers’ comp benefits after a positive drug test in Georgia, don’t hesitate to contact the experienced Atlanta work injury lawyers at Gerber & Holder. Our attorneys have more than 75 years of experience helping Georgia workers get maximum workers’ comp benefits after an injury.
