An employee who fails to submit to or pass alcohol testing under his or her employer's policy is ineligible for unemployment compensation under the law's drug-testing provision, the Commonwealth Court has ruled.
Two of the three judges on the split panel concluded that although Section 401(e.1) of Pennsylvania's Unemployment Compensation Law does not mention alcohol, keeping alcohol out of its ambit would yield an unreasonable result, because many employer's equate the two when crafting their substance-abuse policies. Additionally, while the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review urged the court to interpret alcohol violations under Section 402(e) — the general willful misconduct provision — the majority of the court declined to do so.
