Massachusetts' highest court has sided with a police cadet who was refused a job after he failed a hair follicle drug test.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 6-to-1 on Wednesday that Michael Gannon was wrongly denied employment by Boston police.
The ruling agreed with the Civil Service Commission that the examination of a person's hair for illicit substances is prone to false positives and the department has offered insufficient evidence to disprove Gannon's denial of drug use.
The ruling comes after Gannon was first denied a job as a police officer in 2010. He had previously been a police cadet from 2007 to 2009 and passed the same tests.
The court also agreed Gannon should have the first spot the next time the department hires new officers.
Correction (Oct. 31, 2019, 8:12 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this story erroneously reported the cadet's race. He is white, not black.
