Is it illegal to pose as someone for job drug test?

[quincy]

Legalese or not a job is not a privilege.

It depends on the job, I suppose.

 

[adjusterjack]

There is a large US company that rewrote all of their contracts to make them consumer-friendly. The original contracts were reduced by several pages, just by eliminating all of the words like heretofore and whereas.

Few and far between.

I recently opened a new checking account. The account agreement is 60 pages. And there were other documents to go along with it.

And that's only one example of contracts for services.

 

[commentator]

Okay, so thinking ahead. Your brother is told he is hired, contingent upon the drug/urine test. He is told to go to report to xxxx lab testing facility and take a test. You go, you pee, you show your brudder's ID. If you and your brother don't REALLY look alike, they might pick it up here. I bet it has been tried before. Many of those people who work in those testing facilities have very sharp eyes. They might ask for more confirmation. They might actually indicate there was a problem or an issue with the test.

If so, if anything questionable comes up about your brother's pee test, do you really think he's the one who's going to get hired? Nah. They won't fool with it. Throw this baby out, hire someone else. Otherwise, maybe he will be hired, based on his qualifications AND your clean test.

He shows up for work, works a while, and laughingly tells a very sympathetic co-worker, "Hey, I smoke too, (socially) but my brother took the test for me." It goes straight back to HR. He is called in, questioned, lies, is fired. Or tells the truth and is fired. Machs nicht.

He shows up for work and at some point a very sensitive person he works with smells cigarettes on him. Boy, can you ever smell it, when you are an ex smoker and you get next to someone who's smoked recently! They tell the authority, and HR demands he do a retest. Are you going to take the chance of doing this twice? Really?

I think it is very iffy, skeevy and generally a bad idea to do this, though I can't quote an exact law you'd be violating, I'm not an attorney. I'm just someone who has worked with employment issues and people who worked with employment issues for many years. And one overwhelming thing I have learned is that these sort of situations usually do not end well. If anyone else in the world finds out, they will tell on you. If your brother and your sister in law fall out, she will tell on him. People rat other people out. It usually doesn't work well to take a situation under false pretenses.

Frankly, if I were your brother, I'd go looking for another job at another place. This obviously isn't the place for him. As for you, it's not worth the worry and the bad feeling it gives you and the real questions it might possibly raise. How can you feel ethical when you talk to your children? How can you justify screwing the rules? It is not worth it.

 

[Zigner]

Legalese or not a job is not a privilege.

Depending on the definition being used

 

[quincy]

Few and far between.

I recently opened a new checking account. The account agreement is 60 pages. And there were other documents to go along with it.

And that's only one example of contracts for services.

Here is a link to a Harvard Business Review article by Shawn Burton that is on "plain language contracts" and GE Aviation's new, simpler, legalese-free contracts:
https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-case-for-plain-language-contracts

 

[commentator]

It'd be a beautiful world if there were no complicated employer contracts. But get out and vote people, because it isn't going to change for the American employee unless we change a whole lot of things that are going on right now today, and frankly, the employers have all the power right now and are getting more every day.

In our state, just now, we are dealing with a prince of a legislative aide to our state house speaker who brags via email about doing cocaine at 10 am in his office at the state capitol. What is our legislature working on this session? A bill to demand drug testing for social services recipients! Remember the golden rule. He that has the gold makes the rules. There is nothing about faking a drug test for nicotine that will help to change the situation as it is.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Just remember that if you help your brother out the old saying is still very true "No good deed shall go unpunished". Not worth the risk.
I understand the others talking about the cost of health care and how employers are trying to curb those costs, but how far could it go? "We only employ Prius owners because they are a safer car" or "We only employ people who belong to a gym and we will need to see your membership card and attendance record".

The difference is that under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, insurers generally must charge the same premium for all applicants regardless of their habits or pre-existing conditions. But there are a few exceptions to that, one of which is that they may charge more for smokers. And if an employer pays a percentage of the premium for its employees, as many employers do, that increased premium for smoking means increased costs for the employer. In other words, this is something which directly impacts the employer's pocket — it has to cough up more cash to pay for that employee's health plan. That makes it a reasonable concern of the employer. Your examples of owning a Prius (and I challenge the notion that it is a "safer car" than others out there; it is certainly one that puts out fewer greenhouse emissions) and the gym membership because those things do not result in a direct hit to the bank account of the employer.

 

[Taxing Matters]

You will be suggesting that the legal profession stops using Latin next

It might surprise you then to know that most of the archaic Latin terms and phrases that once regularly populated legal writing have fallen into disuse. A very few terms that have a very specific meaning in the law still persist, but for the most part Latin is becoming as much a dead language for American lawyers as it is for the rest of the world.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Few and far between.

I recently opened a new checking account. The account agreement is 60 pages. And there were other documents to go along with it.

And that's only one example of contracts for services.

Bear in mind, Jack, that part of the reason for that long account agreement are regulations imposed by federal and state governments that mandate certain disclosures and terms in account agreements. Folks like Elizabeth Warren who favor significantly increased regulations of banks, whatever you think of their intentions, end up as a side effect ballooning up account agreement statements and account disclosures, among other things.

 

[eerelations]

There is a large US company that rewrote all of their contracts to make them consumer-friendly. The original contracts were reduced by several pages, just by eliminating all of the words like heretofore and whereas.

I was engaged by one company specifically to re-write all of their employment contracts and policies, which were originally written by lawyers. This company had a lot of employees for whom English was a second language, so they had a particularly hard time understanding their employment agreements and company policies. I re-wrote all of the documents into simple language (mostly by removing all of the "whereofs" and "wherefors" but also by removing that vast amount of repetitiveness found in documents drafted by lawyers), and then ran them past the lawyers who wrote them originally, just to make sure everything was still enforceable. The lawyers were so impressed they offered me a job. (I declined but did allow them to use my "consumer-friendly" documents as templates for future employment documents assignments they got. I suppose I should have asked for some $ for this but hey! it looked great on my resume.)

 

[quincy]

... I suppose I should have asked for some $ for this but hey! it looked great on my resume.)

Yup. You should have asked for many $ for it.

 

[adjusterjack]

Bear in mind, Jack, that part of the reason for that long account agreement are regulations imposed by federal and state governments that mandate certain disclosures and terms in account agreements.

Oh, I do very much bear that in mind. It's the same with the insurance industry thanks to regulations and litigation. The standard homeowners policy booklet is 24 pages, the standard auto policy is 14 pages. Add to them a variety of endorsements and modifying forms to conform to the requirements of each state where the policy is written.

It might surprise you then to know that most of the archaic Latin terms and phrases that once regularly populated legal writing have fallen into disuse. A very few terms that have a very specific meaning in the law still persist, but for the most part Latin is becoming as much a dead language for American lawyers as it is for the rest of the world.

There are still a few favorites left.

Res Ipsa Loquitur
Nunc Pro Tunc
Pro Hac Vice
Non Illegitimus Carborundum

 

[bcr229]

In our state, just now, we are dealing with a prince of a legislative aide to our state house speaker who brags via email about doing cocaine at 10 am in his office at the state capitol. What is our legislature working on this session? A bill to demand drug testing for social services recipients! Remember the golden rule. He that has the gold makes the rules. There is nothing about faking a drug test for nicotine that will help to change the situation as it is.

I would rather see a bill that elected officials and their staffers must pass a weekly whiz quiz.

 

[quincy]

... but for the most part Latin is becoming as much a dead language for American lawyers as it is for the rest of the world.

Well, there are many Latin words that have become so much a part of the English language that people think they are English words and not Latin words.

There is alias and alibi and veto and verbatim and status quo and audio and bona fide and in utero and in vitro and in memoriam and per capita and versus ... Latin is not just for lawyers.

That said, si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Well, there are many Latin words that have become so much a part of the English language that people think they are English words and not Latin words.

There is alias and alibi and veto and verbatim and status quo and audio and bona fide and in utero and in vitro and in memoriam and per capita and versus [/QUOTE]

Ah, but those are great examples of words that have been adopted by and become part of English. So when those are used by an English speaker, they are using English...just English that traces back to Latin roots. English borrows from a lot of different languages; English speakers seem to have little problem incorporating useful terms from other languages. We don't try to wall out foreign words to keep the language pure as some others, notably the French, do.