The worker just wanted to stay home – one phone call changed everything
A supervisor's phone order over a workplace drug test just cost a police lieutenant his legal shield against a personal lawsuit.
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Lt. Darryl Watson of the New Orleans Police Department cannot claim qualified immunity – the protection that shields public officials from personal liability – on a claim that he ordered an unlawful seizure of one of his own employees.
The employee, Karl Von Derhaar, worked as a civilian in the NOPD's crime lab. He had requested leave without pay after, the court recounts, his concerns about certain NOPD practices went unanswered. Officers later showed up at his home for a wellness check. They said they were worried about his well-being and asked him to come to the Public Integrity Bureau for a drug test. They told him repeatedly that he was not under arrest.
Von Derhaar asked to stay home. The officers called Watson instead. According to the opinion, officers relayed that Von Derhaar wanted to go back inside his house since he was not under arrest. Watson, the court recounts, told the officers to inform Von Derhaar that he was being put back on the clock and ordered to come in to take the test.
Von Derhaar asked whether quitting on the spot would let him avoid going. Officers told him to go sign paperwork, then took him to the bureau. He resigned rather than be tested.
He sued under Section 1983, the federal law that allows suits against officials who violate constitutional rights, alleging an unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Von Derhaar, the court found that Watson's order compelled the worker to leave his home and amounted to a seizure unsupported by a warrant or any emergency. As the panel recounts, the trial court held that any reasonable official should have known that ordering a person seized from their home for a drug test, without a warrant, probable cause, or exigent circumstances, was objectively unreasonable.
The detail HR leaders should sit with is how little it took to keep Watson personally in the case. He never went to the house. He gave one instruction by phone. The court explained that a supervisor can be personally liable for giving a command, signal, or other direction that prompts a detention. The phone order was that direction.
That is the practical signal for anyone running a drug-testing or fitness-for-duty program. An employee at home who has asked to stay put is in a very different position from one who has reported to a testing site. The moment a request to come test becomes an order that the worker may not refuse, the legal ground shifts. The case is a prompt to spell out, in writing, when testing can be compelled, how a wellness check differs from a work order, and exactly who is authorized to issue either.
The court was clear that this is an early ruling. It affirmed only that the case can move forward and took no position on the ultimate merits, which remain to be decided.
