SCOTUS denies workers compensation for workers seeking medical marijuana for injuries

Compensation for workers injured at work is being approached from a variety of angles, although it faces an ongoing setback: Cannabis remains a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), essentially precluding workers from seeking compensation for its use as a can request a drug.

Two Minnesota employee cases were discussed at a private conference earlier this year, both of which were deemed invalid under a 2021 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that found employers were not required to pay for their employees’ medical marijuana treatment.

Both cases were dismissed in a new decision by the US Supreme Court on Tuesday. Marijuana Moment reported that Certiori’s denial means fewer than four judges believed the legal challenges merited Supreme Court consideration, not necessarily a majority agreeing with the lower courts’ decisions in the two disputes .

In February, the US Supreme Court ordered the Justice Department’s chief counsel to produce a brief. The response from the attorney general’s office came last month with a recommendation that the court should not take up the matter.

The cases

Susan Musta filed a petition with the US Supreme Court in November when the state court found that her employer was not required to pay medical cannabis reimbursement after her injury at a dental center where she worked.

A Friends of the Court brief filed in December by Empire State NORML and the cannabis industry associations of New York City and Hudson Valley called on judges to appeal from Minnesota, thereby resolving the conflict between state and federal cannabis laws.

Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images

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Daniel Bierbach, the protagonist in a similar case, filed his application for a certiorari (a proceeding seeking judicial review of a lower court’s decision) months after Musta in January. The regional court made the same judgment.

While the filings in both cases were distributed on Feb. 2 for a Supreme Court conference scheduled for Feb. 18, judges are now asking the Biden administration to comment on the issue.