Earnest Lingov.Early County Gin, Inc.
Earnest Lingo was injured when a truck backed into him at a cotton gin, crushing him against a loading dock. After the accident, an employer-arranged urine test showed cannabinoid metabolites, and the State Board of Workers’ Compensation applied a statutory presumption that marijuana use caused the injury. The Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the superior court’s order and remanded. The employer had not satisfied the statutory testing requirements needed to invoke the rebuttable presumption, including the required chain of custody and procedures. The appellate court held, however, that the test results were still admissible evidence for the fact finder to weigh. A defect in compliance affected the weight of the result rather than its admissibility, particularly because there was no affirmative evidence of tampering or substitution. On remand, the fact finder must decide the claim without the statutory presumption while considering the drug-test evidence and the competing evidence about whether Lingo was impaired, whether the truck’s warning system worked, and whether the workplace noise prevented him from hearing the truck.
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