A cannabis patient in Pennsylvania has been given the green light by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to sue her former employer.

The patient, Donna Hudnell, alleges that she was wrongfully fired due to her cannabis use.

Hudnell was a former security analyst for Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals Inc. where she was fired after failing a drug test for cannabis. This is despite being a lawfully registered patient.

According to her employer, Hudnell’s medical cannabis patient card had expired and they had no way of knowing whether her positive test was from cannabis use for medical reasons.

Hudnell had been drug tested upon returning from work from spinal surgery and was fired on the same day her medical cannabis card was re-certified.

Judge Gerald J. Pappert in a ruling said that one of the purposes of the state’s medical cannabis was to protect medical cannabis cardholders from job discrimination. Papper also said that the state Supreme Court would find the legislature intended to give workers that right despite it not expressly outlining such protections in the 2016 law.

Hudnell, who is black, alleges that a white employee who failed a drug test for cannabis without a medical cannabis card was treated more fairly. That patient was allowed to seek drug treatment and was not fired.

Hudnell must now wait until the state Human Rights Commission finishes investigating the bias claim or fails to do so for one year until she can refile her claims under the state’s Human Relations Act and Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance.


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