(The following story by Paul Hammel appeared on the Omaha World-Herald website on March 19, 2010.)
LINCOLN, Neb. — If you won’t go, then you get no dough.
That was the ruling this morning in the Nebraska Supreme Court over a Burlington Northern Sante Fe engineer who said he was unable to provide a urine sample for a federal- and company-required drug test in January of 2003.
Gerald Jackson, an engineer from Box Butte County, was suspended for nine months by the railroad for refusing to take the test.
He was also denied “held out of service” pay from the Brotherhood’s Relief and Compensation Fund during his suspension.
Jackson sued the fund and won in district court, getting $53,000 in damages. But that ruling was reversed today by the Supreme Court
The engineer had maintained that his inability to urinate was linked to an inflamed prostate.
But the court cited a doctor’s opinion that dehydration rather than prostatitis was the likely reason he could not urinate.