Florida Appeals Court: Your Med Card May Not Save Your Job

What Happened

Angelo Giambrone was a firefighter/paramedic for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. In February 2019 his name came up in a random drug test. It came back positive for marijuana. He had a valid Florida medical marijuana card.

Nobody claimed he was high at work. The trial court specifically found there was no evidence he used or possessed cannabis on the job, no performance reviews alleging impairment, and no prior complaints or suspicion. The test wasn't triggered by an accident or anything he did — it was purely the luck of the draw.

The County placed him on unpaid administrative leave anyway, days after the result came back in March 2019. He was still on that status when this appeal began in early 2025 — nearly six years with no paycheck — and the case wasn't decided until July 2026, roughly seven and a half years after the test. Technically he was never "fired" — he sued claiming constructive discharge, meaning the County made it impossible to keep working.

In December 2024 the trial judge sided with him completely: back pay, damages, and a sweeping order telling the County it must accommodate any employee who presents a med card after a positive test, so long as there was no evidence of on-duty use.

The appeals court just wiped all of that out — reversed in full, and ordered the trial court to enter judgment for the County on all four counts.

The Three Reasons — and Why Each Matters to You

1. A med card is not a prescription. Legally, it's not even close.

This is the heart of it, and the part most patients get wrong.

The union contract said employees could test positive if the drug was a "prescription or nonprescription medication." Sounds like a med card should count — a doctor authorized it, after all.

No. The contract defined "prescription" by pointing to a Florida statute, which points to another statute — and that one describes a pharmacist filling a script under Chapter 465 pharmacy law. Cannabis doesn't move through that system at all. You get a physician certification, not a prescription, and you buy from a licensed Medical Marijuana Treatment Center (MMTC), not a pharmacy. The court noted the Legislature went out of its way to say MMTCs are expressly not regulated as pharmacies.

The trial judge had tried to call a dispensary a "special pharmacy." The appeals court said that collapses two entirely separate legal systems.

It also isn't an over-the-counter drug, because it isn't authorized "for general distribution and use without a prescription" — you need a card. The trial judge had reasoned that 880,000+ patients and 650+ dispensaries amounts to "general distribution." The appeals court said popularity isn't the test.

Bottom line: the Medical Review Officer (MRO) was not required to flip that positive test to a negative just because he showed his card.

2. Rescheduling to Schedule III does not fix this

Worth reading twice, because a lot of people assume it does.

The federal rule moving marijuana to Schedule III took effect April 28, 2026 — while this appeal was pending. The court acknowledged it and said it changes nothing, for two independent reasons:

• Even under Schedule III, cannabis is still restricted to medical use, authorized patients, and licensed dispensaries. That is still not an aisle-at-Walgreens product.
• Courts apply the law as it stood when the claim arose — 2019/2020 — when cannabis was Schedule I.

If you were waiting for rescheduling to hand you workplace protection: it didn't, and this court says it doesn't.

3. Amendment 2 is a shield, not a sword

Amendment 2 says "nothing in this section shall require any accommodation of any on-site medical use" at a place of employment.

The trial judge read that backwards — reasoning that if the amendment only excuses employers from allowing on-site use, it must therefore require them to allow off-site use. The appeals court's response is the most quotable line in the opinion:

"The expressio unius canon is not a spell for transmogrifying a no-duty clause into a yes-duty command."

Translation: "we don't require X" never means "we therefore require the opposite of X." Amendment 2 protects you from criminal and civil penalties under Florida law. It does not give you a right to a particular job on your preferred terms.

Florida's implementing statute, § 381.986(15), goes further — it says employers keep the power to run a drug-free workplace, are not required to accommodate medical marijuana, and it "does not create a cause of action against an employer for wrongful discharge or discrimination."

The Contract Detail That Sealed It

Two provisions in the firefighters' union contract — formally a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) — did most of the damage:

• Employees couldn't use drugs "at any time while employed" — not just at work, not just on the clock. At any time. The trial judge had read the policy as workplace-only; the appeals court said that erases an entire clause.
• The contract defined "Impaired" as simply "a confirmed positive drug test." So under the contract he was impaired by definition — no proof of actual on-the-job impairment needed.

There's also a fact the court dropped into a footnote: he testified he smoked "a half a joint to a joint two to three times a day" while employed.

And here's the kicker — that union contract was signed after Amendment 2 passed. Both sides negotiated with medical marijuana already legal in Florida, and kept the restrictive language anyway. No cannabis exception was bargained for.

Important: How Narrow Is This?

The court went out of its way — in its very first footnote — to limit itself:

"We emphasize at the outset the narrowness of our decision... How other employers, or employees subject to different CBAs or different policies, may address medical marijuana is not before us."

So what's specific to this case, and what applies to you?

Case-specific: He was a first responder in a safety-sensitive job driving emergency vehicles and treating patients, held to a statutory "good moral character" standard, under a zero-tolerance union contract with unusually broad language.

Applies broadly across Florida:

• A med card is not a prescription
• Amendment 2 creates no duty to accommodate
• § 381.986 gives you no right to sue for wrongful discharge
• Off-duty, at-home use is not shielded from job consequences

What the Court Did Not Decide

Three open doors worth knowing about:

• Discrimination law wasn't closed off. The majority explicitly said it is not holding that § 381.986 wipes out rights that independently exist under the FCRA, and left open whether "a different FCRA claim, based on a different requested accommodation or different employment terms, might be viable."
• Judge Smith would have gone harder. In a separate opinion, Smith argued that any employee using marijuana can never be a "qualified individual" under the FCRA, since Florida disability law tracks the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the ADA excludes current illegal drug use. That is one judge's view, not the binding holding — but it's where the harsher argument points.
• Federal preemption was never ruled on — the County didn't preserve the issue, so it remains unresolved.

Also notable: Judge Silberman concurred in result only and pushed back on the majority's tone, noting the trial judge was wrestling with hard questions where Florida law has offered "little guidance."

The court also threw out the countywide accommodation order on separate grounds — nobody had asked for an injunction, it wasn't a class action, and a judge rewriting county personnel policy violates separation of powers. The opinion calls it "straight-up policymaking."

The Practical Takeaway for Florida Patients

Being a legal medical marijuana patient in Florida protects you from getting arrested. It does not protect your paycheck.

• Your card is not a get-out-of-a-drug-test card. No Florida employer has to honor it.
• "I only use at home, on my own time" is not a legal defense. This ruling says an employer can enforce a rule reaching off-duty conduct — and a positive test alone can be enough.
• Read your employee handbook and union contract before you get your card, not after you fail a test. Everything here turned on contract language.
• Safety-sensitive work — first responders, anyone driving under a commercial driver's license (CDL), heavy equipment, healthcare — is the highest-risk category by far.
• If your employer is silent on the issue, or your job isn't safety-sensitive, your situation genuinely may differ. That's worth a conversation with an employment lawyer, not a guess.

This follows the same direction as Velez Ortiz (a corrections officer, 1st DCA 2023) and a Collier County federal case decided in January 2026. Florida courts are lining up consistently on this.

One caveat: the opinion is marked "subject to revision prior to official publication," and Giambrone could seek review at the Florida Supreme Court.

This report summarizes a court opinion for general information. It is not legal advice. If your job may be affected, talk to a Florida employment attorney about your specific situation.