NY: Jury awards $191K to city worker fired for using cannabis

Times Union

Wastewater treatment plant employee had a medical prescription to treat chronic back pain with cannabis

AMSTERDAM — A wastewater treatment worker who was fired by the city of Amsterdam three years ago after testing positive for marijuana was awarded $191,762 by a jury that found city officials had discriminated against him when they ignored he had been prescribed the drug for chronic back pain.

It appears to be the first trial verdict in New York in which an employer was found to have violated state Human Rights Law that deems someone with a medical marijuana prescription as having a disability and makes them part of a protected class. The Compassionate Care Act allowing medical prescriptions of marijuana was signed into law in July 2014 and took effect January 2016. Marijuana was legalized for recreational use in 2021.

Thomas V. Apholz, 44, was fired by Mayor Michael Cinquanti after he tested positived for marijuana February 2020 during a random drug screening. Apholz was fired under the provisions of a “last chance agreement” that had been provided to him by the city when he also tested positive for marijuana in 2017. The agreement had noted that any additional violations of the city’s drug policies could result in his immediate termination.

But a year before his second positive test, Apholz had been prescribed marijuana for the treatment of back pain. That prescription was in effect at the time he tested positive three years ago. According to court records, Apholz notified city officials that he was a certified patient in the state Medical Marijuana Program and had a valid Department of Health certification for a medical marijuana prescription.

Following the jury’s verdict in state Supreme Court last week, Apholz, who had worked for the city of Amsterdam since 2012, will be eligible to apply to the judge to order that he be reinstated to his $49,000-a-year job at the wastewater treatment plant. The city may also be required to pay his legal fees.

“They couldn’t fire him fast enough,” said Kevin A. Luibrand, Apholz’s attorney. “They gave him a termination letter on a Monday that fired him the prior Sunday so he couldn’t present his prescription card.”