## Facts

- Michigan’s Family Independence Program (FIP), funded under TANF, provided cash assistance administered by the state’s Family Independence Agency.
- Michigan enacted M.C.L. § 400.57 requiring adult FIP applicants and recipients to submit to urinalysis drug testing as a condition of eligibility, without individualized suspicion.
- Refusal to test, or a positive test coupled with noncompliance with required treatment, could result in denial or termination of benefits and related sanctions.
- Individual plaintiffs were current or prospective FIP participants who objected to suspicionless testing; an organizational plaintiff sought relief on behalf of similarly situated adults.
- Plaintiffs sued the agency director in his official capacity, alleging the testing program violated the Fourth Amendment as applied to the states.
- The court previously entered a temporary restraining order halting implementation and later considered plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether compulsory, suspicionless urine drug testing of FIP applicants and recipients constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether the program is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment under the “special needs” doctrine, including whether the state’s welfare-policy goals qualify as a special need beyond ordinary law enforcement.
3. Whether plaintiffs satisfied the requirements for a preliminary injunction (likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of harms, and public interest).

## Decision

- The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the suspicionless testing requirement pending final resolution.
- The court found plaintiffs were likely to succeed because urinalysis is a Fourth Amendment search and the program did not fall within the narrow category of permissible suspicionless testing.
- The court held the state’s asserted interests (discouraging drug use, protecting children, and encouraging employability) did not amount to a qualifying special need tied to concrete public-safety risks.
- The court found irreparable harm because threatened violations of Fourth Amendment rights are not adequately remedied by damages.
- The balance of harms favored plaintiffs given the immediate invasion of bodily privacy and medical information, while the state could pursue individualized-suspicion approaches.
- The public interest favored enforcement of constitutional limits on government searches.

## Legal Principles

- Collection and testing of urine is a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
- The Fourth Amendment ordinarily requires individualized suspicion; suspicionless searches are allowed only in limited circumstances.
- Under the “special needs” doctrine, the government must show a need beyond ordinary law enforcement, typically connected to concrete public-safety or security concerns, and the program must be narrowly justified.
- General welfare-policy objectives, standing alone, do not justify conditioning public benefits on suspicionless bodily searches.

## Conclusion

The court preliminarily enjoined Michigan’s welfare drug-testing statute because mandatory, suspicionless urinalysis is a Fourth Amendment search and the state’s asserted welfare and child-related goals did not establish a special need sufficient to override individualized-suspicion requirements.


Marchwinski v. Howard, 113 F. Supp. 2d 1134 (E.D. Mich. 2000)