Denise Elliott

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An employee may sue an employer under the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (“MMA”) for discrimination because of the employee’s status as an individual who is certified to use medical marijuana. This was the recent holding of the Superior Court in the case of Moses Taylor Hospital v. Palmiter.  As you may recall, we discussed…

This week, Governor Wolf signed House Bill 1024, allowing certain revisions to the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (the “Act”).  While the revisions do not specifically implicate the workplace, and do not provide guidance to employers on navigating medical marijuana use by employees, employers should, nonetheless, pay attention.

What changed?

House Bill 1024 makes permanent three…

The answer to this question is . . . it depends.  Based on three recent court decisions, whether the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”) protects medical marijuana (“MMJ”) users from discrimination on the basis of their current use of MMJ appears to depend on the specific accommodation requested by the user.  We summarize these key…

Earlier this month, in the case of Hudnell v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, District Court Judge Gerald Pappert denied Jefferson’s motion to dismiss Hudnell’s claims for violation of the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (“Act”), making him the second judge in Pennsylvania to uphold the right of a certified medical marijuana user to bring a cause…

Lately, products containing CBD (from beer to skin cream to oils that can be diffused and vaped) seem to be all the rage.  Why are CBD products suddenly turning up everywhere (your local Sheetz convenience store for example)?  Blame it on the Farm Bill!  The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (otherwise known as the U.S.…

Two years ago, the first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Pennsylvania.  Since that time, well over a hundred thousand Pennsylvania residents have become certified to use medical marijuana, additional conditions were added to the listed of qualifying serious health conditions and employers started to field questions from employees who wanted to use (or already were…

Prior to July 2nd, New Jersey’s Medical Cannabis Act lacked protections for employees’ off-duty medical marijuana use.  Indeed, last year the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey held that nothing in the Medical Cannabis Act “requires an employer to waive a drug test as a condition of employment for federally-prohibited…

What’s new in the world of medical marijuana, as it impacts your workplace?  Quite a bit, actually.  Here is the rundown.

PA Medical Marijuana Act – Anxiety and Tourette’s Syndrome Added to List of Serious Medical Conditions

Effective July 20, 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Health added anxiety disorders and Tourette’s syndrome to the list…

At the end of 2018, the Superior Court of Delaware held that a terminated employee could proceed with his lawsuit, alleging that his employer terminated him for being a medical marijuana cardholder.  Chance v. Kraft Heinz Foods Co.  In allowing the suit to move forward, the Delaware Court found that the anti-discrimination language in the…