The Arizona Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, voted yesterday to overturn a state law that would deny workers' compensation benefits to employees injured on the job who test positive for drugs or alcohol.
In its ruling, the court found that the law violated Article 18 section 8 of the state constitution, which established a no-fault workers' comp system that provided benefits to injured workers without consideration of any fault on their part provided the injury occurred during the course of their employment.
The Court's ruling was based on two cases, Grammatico v. the Industrial Commission and Komalestewa v. the Industrial Commission, in which injured workers tested positive for illegal drugs and alcohol respectively. Lower courts had denied a claim in the Komalestewa case, and there was a dissenting opinion issued in the lower court in the Grammatico case, although his claim was upheld.
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