ORDER

D.P. MARSHALL, Jr., District Judge.

1. Brotherton worked as a boiler operator at the Arkansas Health Center, a nursing facility of the Arkansas Department of Human Services. The parties agree his job was a dangerous one. Brotherton maintained boilers that held hot water ranging from 110 degrees to 1,400 degrees. If improperly maintained, boilers can explode, causing great harm to people and property. Human error is the culprit in most explosions. Boiler operators such as Brotherton are, under the Center's policy, subject to random drug testing and, like all Center employees, subject to drug testing based on reasonable suspicion.

In November 2011, maintenance supervisor Tracy Jackson found a cigarette lighter next to an aluminum pie pan in the men's restroom used by Brotherton and other maintenance personnel. Burnt brown residue was in the pan. Jackson informed safety officer Donham, a former narcotics officer with many years' experience in law enforcement. Donham suspected drug use and he called director Jay Hill. Donham then had Brotherton, and all the other maintenance folks on the job, gather in a conference room. From there, safety officers carted van-loads of workers across campus to the drug-testing facility. Nobody was watching Brotherton fill the testing cup. He did, however, have to leave the door open and facility personnel were in the next room.

The Center's policy on point is appended. The Center prohibits employees from using controlled substances on duty. When the circumstances provide reasonable cause, the Center may require its employees to submit to urinalysis. An employee with a positive test result faces suspension, drug counseling, termination, or some combination of this discipline. The policy requires confidentiality about the testing results, with disclosure only to those who need the information for official business duties or as required by law.

2. The Fourth Amendment's familiar guarantee is that no person may be subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures. The parties recognize, and the Court agrees, that the Supreme Court's construction of the Amendment in the context of public workers involved in dangerous activities applies here. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Association, 489 U.S. 602,624 (1989). The Center had a compelling interest in ensuring that Brotherton performed his safety-sensitive duties with a clear mind. Ibid. Weighed against that interest, the intrusion into Brotherton's legitimate expectation of privacy was minimal. Rushton v. Nebraska Public Power District, 844 F.2d 562, 566 (8th Cir. 1988) (RichardS. Arnold, J.).

Brotherton was detained about fifty-five minutes for the test. He was off duty forty-five of those minutes. In other words, the Center kept him at work almost an hour late. This delay caused him to miss a long-scheduled appointment to have his damaged piano appraised. When Brotherton asked to leave for that appointment, Donham treated him gruffly — he yelled, and refused to allow Brotherton to go anywhere. All this weighs in the reasonableness balance. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619. While the Court doesn't condone Donham's incivility, it doesn't make this search unreasonable. Brotherton got his piano appraised a few weeks later.

A number of non-maintenance personnel also used the maintenance bathroom. That fact doesn't diminish the Center's interest in making sure that none of the maintenance workers was using drugs on the job. And the connection between this bathroom and those workers was not so attenuated that it made their testing unreasonable in the circumstances. The Center didn't give Brotherton's test results to law enforcement. One of Brotherton's co-workers tested positive for methamphetamine; the Center didn't give his results to law enforcement either. Compare Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001). The Center didn't test Brotherton even though his job wasn't dangerous. Compare Harmon v. Thornburgh, 878 F.2d484 (D.C. Cir.1989). Bad blood didn't lead the Center to target Brotherton for drug testing. Compare Ford v. Dowd, 931 F.2d 1286 (8th Cir. 1991). The brown stuff in the pie pan, as Brotherton points out, eventually tested negative for any controlled substance. That truth doesn't diminish the reasonableness of officer Donham's suspicions.

The Court has considered the undisputed material facts and, where there is some dispute, viewed the record in Brotherton's favor. Taylor v. White, 321 F.3d 710, 715 (8th Cir. 2003). He suffered no Fourth Amendment violation. Defendants' motion for summary judgment, No 36, is granted.

So Ordered.