## Facts

- Florida enacted Fla. Stat. § 414.0652 (2011), requiring all applicants for Temporary Cash Assistance (TANF) to submit to drug testing as a condition of eligibility, with reimbursement for negative results and benefit ineligibility after positive results.
- Luis W. Lebron, an honorably discharged veteran and single father, applied for TANF benefits in July 2011.
- Lebron refused to submit to the required drug test on constitutional grounds and was denied benefits.
- Lebron sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the statute violated the Fourth Amendment (as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment).
- Lebron moved for a preliminary injunction and sought certification of a class of similarly situated TANF applicants.

## Issues

1. Whether mandatory, suspicionless drug testing of all TANF applicants constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment, including whether the “special needs” doctrine justifies the program.
2. Whether Lebron satisfied the requirements for a preliminary injunction (likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of harms, and public interest).
3. Whether a Rule 23 class should be certified given the State’s stipulation regarding non-enforcement during the litigation.

## Decision

- Granted a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of Fla. Stat. § 414.0652 against Lebron pending final adjudication.
- Found Lebron showed a substantial likelihood of success on the merits because the State failed to demonstrate a qualifying “special need” that would justify blanket, suspicionless testing of TANF applicants.
- Found irreparable harm because Lebron faced either an unconstitutional bodily intrusion if he complied or loss of subsistence benefits if he refused.
- Found the balance of harms and the public interest favored protecting constitutional rights over the State’s asserted fiscal and policy interests on the record presented.
- Denied class certification without prejudice because the State stipulated it would not enforce the statute against similarly situated TANF applicants while the case was pending.

## Legal Principles

- Government-compelled drug testing (including urinalysis) is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment and must be reasonable.
- Suspicionless searches are permissible only in a narrow set of “special needs” circumstances where the government identifies a concrete need beyond ordinary law enforcement and shows that need outweighs the privacy interests at stake.
- Applicants for cash assistance do not, by applying, forfeit ordinary Fourth Amendment protections; conditioning benefits on suspicionless testing is evaluated within the overall reasonableness analysis, not treated as automatically voluntary or permissible.
- For preliminary injunctions, a likely constitutional violation constitutes irreparable harm, and the public interest generally favors enforcement of constitutional guarantees.

## Conclusion

The court preliminarily enjoined Florida’s statute requiring suspicionless drug testing of all TANF applicants, holding that the State had not shown a “special need” sufficient to justify the intrusion on applicants’ privacy, and it denied class certification without prejudice based on the State’s non-enforcement stipulation during the case.


Lebron v. Wilkins, 820 F. Supp. 2d 1273 (M.D. Fla. 2011)