In Ladner v. Hinton Homes LLC, No. 2024-WC-00941-COA (May 6, 2025), the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission’s decision denying and dismissing Ladner’s claim for benefits, where the employee tested positive for marijuana immediately following a workplace injury. The Commission found that Ladner had failed to rebut the presumption raised by Mississippi Code Annotated § 71-3-121(1) by failing to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that intoxication was not a contributing cause of the accident. The Court’s opinion provides valuable insights about the evidence that could be needed to successfully rebut the statutory presumption against compensability.
What happened?
Ladner was employed by a contractor to frame houses for Hinton Homes LLC, which was deemed the statutory employer. One afternoon, following his return from a lunch break, Ladner fell through a hole while nailing plywood decking onto a roof and landed on the concrete foundation below. Ladner requested to be taken to hospital, where he was given medical care. When drug tested at the hospital, Ladner tested positive for THC. Ladner was not a medical marijuana patient at the time of the fall, making his consumption of marijuana illegal.
Following his release from the hospital, Ladner filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits relating to his injuries. Hinton Homes asserting that the claim was barred pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated § 71-3-7(4) and § 71-3-121(1), because there was a presumption that Ladner’s injury was proximately caused by his use of drugs illegally.
In an attempt to rebut the presumption, Ladner relied on his own personal testimony and the testimony of his coworkers. Ladner contended that he only smoked marijuana once, two weeks prior to the injury, making it impossible for the marijuana to have caused his fall. Ladner also relied on testimony from coworkers, who said that Ladner did not smell like marijuana or look impaired on the day of the injury. Significantly, Ladner did not present any expert medical evidence to challenge the validity of the drug test or to show the levels of THC present in his post-injury drug test.
What was the result?
The Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission’s decision that Ladner had not met his burden under § 71-3-121(1) to prove by a ponderance of the evidence that his use of marijuana was not the proximate cause of the injury and that, as a result, the claim was barred by § 71-3-7(4).
The Court of Appeals discussed that Mississippi Code Annotated §71-3-121(1) gives employers the right to directly or indirectly administer drug tests to any employee that sustains an actual injury at work or claims to have suffered a work-related injury. Under this statute, if the employee tests positive for any illegal drug, then it is initially presumed that the illegal drug was the cause of the injury. The injured worker has a chance to rebut this presumption by affirmatively showing that the illegal drug use was not the proximate cause of the injury. To meet this burden, the injured worker must show that it was more likely than not that the presence of the illegal drug in his system was not a contributing cause of the accident. If the presumption is not successfully rebutted, then the injury is not compensable pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated § 71-3-7(4).
Neither the Court of Appeals nor the Commission set a bright-line rule for the evidence necessary to rebut the § 71-3-121(1) presumption. However, the Court emphasized the Commission’s reliance on the fact that Ladner failed to introduce any medical testimony about his drug test or the interpretation of the test results and that Ladner instead relied wholly on lay testimony—his own and that of witnesses—to rebut the presumption. The Court agreed with the Commission’s determination that such lay testimony was insufficient to meet Ladner’s burden of proof.
What does this mean?
The decision suggests that claimants will need to present expert medical evidence to meet their burden of proof in rebutting the presumption under § 71-3-121(1). This might include getting secondary/confirmatory urine tests or presenting expert testimony about whether the level of an illicit drug in a claim’s system would have been too low to have been a contributing cause of the injury.
This case also highlights the importance of post-injury drug testing policies for Mississippi employers. Employers with such policies should drug test immediately after an injury is reported, as it is not the amount of the drug in the system that triggers the statutory presumption, but the presence of the drug.
Author
Jennifer Hughes Scott is a shareholder at Wise Carter Child & Caraway and has been practicing with the firm since 2004. She is a graduate of Mississippi College School of Law. Jennifer’s practice includes all aspects of employment law and workers’ compensation. Jennifer acts as a legal advocate and counselor to her clients and brings a forward-thinking perspective that supports her clients in successfully responding to HR and employment law challenges.
