Court Upholds Termination of Crack-smoking Pilot
Proving that anyone can sue for anything (and that justice occasionally gets done), yesterday a federal court refused to overturn the license termination of a pilot who admitted smoking crack cocaine.
The Facts
According to court documents . . .
- Pilot Charles Gabbard admittedly smoked crack cocaine sometime between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on February 15, 2007.
- On February 16, Gabbard submitted to a random drug test.
- On February 17, he piloted a chartered jet.
- On February 21, Gabbard’s test results came back, showing a cocaine metabolite level seven times higher than the regulatory limit.
- Cocaine takes 24-48 hours to clear the system, according to the drug test administrator.
In April 2007, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) terminated Gabbard’s pilot’s license based on the positive drug test and the agency’s conclusion that he had piloted the February 17 flight “while having a prohibited drug, cocaine in [his] system.”
After an evidentiary hearing, an Administrative Law Judge upheld the FAA’s decision. The National Transportation Safety Board also affirmed the decision.
Despite all the above, Gabbard filed a lawsuit, claiming there was inadequate evidence for his termination.
The Court’s Decision
Not too surprisingly, the law doesn’t allow pilots to fly the friendly skies while on drugs. What is surprising is that Gabbard was able to get his case all the way to the second highest federal court in the land.
Basically, Gabbard’s defense appeared to be: “Hey, you can’t terminate me. Sure, I smoked crack and massively failed a drug test but you can’t prove with 100% certainty that I was coked up while I was actually flying that big plane in the sky with lots of people on it.”
After examining all the evidence, the court concluded that a “reasonable mind” could determine that Gabbard flew the plane with coke in his system. It pointed to the ALJ’s conclusion that Gabbard lacked credibility and that his admitted crack smoking may have taken place closer to takeoff. Even without that, however, the uncontested evidence showed that Gabbard piloted the jet (at most) 42 to 44 hours after smoking crack — within the 24-48 hour window it takes for coke to clear the system.
Gabbard tried a few other creative arguments, including that (1) he inadvertently smoked a cigarette that — unbeknownst to him — was laced with crack, (2) the coke may have gotten into his system due to plastic surgery or (3) perhaps he inhaled crack smoke that just happened to waft by his head at some point.
The court rejected each of those arguments, finding that regardless of how the coke got into his system, Gabbard immediately knew he was affected. Rather than inform his employer about the “accidental” crack ingestion, he instead jumped behind the controls of the plane and took off.
Gabbard’s final argument was that his lawyer was so bad that the decision below should be thrown out. The court rejected that argument as well, noting that there is no constitutional right to effective counsel in a civil case.
Click here to read the entire decision.
