## Facts

- Bradford L. Stinson’s employer required him to submit to urinalysis drug screening as a condition of employment.
- Stinson provided a urine specimen at Physicians Immediate Care, Ltd., which tested the sample and reported to the employer that it was positive for cocaine.
- Stinson alleged the positive report was false and caused his termination and resulting economic loss, reputational harm, humiliation, and emotional distress.
- Stinson alleged the facility failed to use basic safeguards in collection, handling, identification, testing, and reporting, including sterile containers, tamper-evident sealing, and specimen identification (e.g., initials/labels).
- Stinson filed a two-count complaint: (1) negligence on his own behalf and (2) a proposed class claim for similarly situated tested individuals.
- The trial court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the facility owed no duty of care to Stinson; Stinson appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a medical facility/laboratory performing employer-requested drug-screening owes a duty of reasonable care to the employee in collecting, handling, testing, and reporting the employee’s specimen.

## Decision

- The appellate court held the facility owed Stinson a duty of reasonable care in the collection, handling, testing, and reporting of the drug-screening specimen and results.
- The court reversed the trial court’s dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court treated duty as a question of law and concluded the complaint sufficiently alleged duty, breach, and harm to survive dismissal at the pleading stage.

## Legal Principles

- In Illinois negligence law, duty depends on the relationship of the parties and policy factors, including foreseeability and likelihood of injury, the burden of preventing injury, and the consequences of imposing that burden.
- A drug-testing facility’s work is directed at the tested individual, and the facility knows its report will be used to make employment decisions; therefore, harm from negligent testing or reporting (including termination and reputational injury) is foreseeable.
- Lack of contractual privity between the facility and the employee does not bar a duty where the employee is the identified subject of the specimen and report and is the person immediately affected by accuracy.
- Imposing a duty of reasonable care is supported where the alleged precautions (e.g., sterile containers, tamper-evident sealing, proper identification) are routine and not unduly burdensome, and where liability remains limited by ordinary requirements of breach, causation, and damages.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that a facility conducting employer-requested drug screening owes tested employees a duty of reasonable care in specimen handling, testing, and reporting because the risk of serious employment and reputational harm from an inaccurate result is foreseeable; the dismissal was reversed and the case remanded.


Stinson v. Physicians Immediate Care, Ltd., 269 Ill. App. 3d 659, 646 N.E.2d 930 (Ill. App. Ct. 2d Dist. 1995)