The Vermont Supreme Court has ruled against a Rutland man seeking unemployment benefits after he was fired from his transit job for testing positive for cannabis, despite having a legal prescription for its use.

Ivo Skoric worked for the Marble Valley Regional Transit District, operators of the The Bus in Rutland, for about four years until his termination in January 2023. At the transit district, Skoric fueled, washed and cleaned out vehicles.

The eight-page ruling issued Friday by the Vermont Supreme Court sidestepped the issue of whether a medical cannabis patient in Vermont has the right to use cannabis in the off-hours from work.

Instead, the decision focused on technical issues with the filing of the appeal.

Skoric, according to the Vermont Supreme Court decision, challenged a Vermont Department of Labor decision “declining to provide him with a declaratory ruling as to whether off-duty, medical cannabis use constitutes ‘misconduct’ such that a claimant is disqualified from receiving unemployment security benefits.”

The ruling added, “Because the Department properly declined to issue a declaratory ruling, we affirm.”

In an email Friday in response to the decision, Skoric said he was seeking more than the declaratory ruling, looking to appeal the decision that denied him a portion of unemployment benefits.  “It says absolutely nothing about the real issue,” Skoric wrote of the Vermont Supreme Court decision.

“Instead,” he wrote, “it is completely lost in the dense legalese debate about the timeliness of appeal, questions of jurisdiction, questionability of asking agencies for declaratory rulings in lieu of appealing their decisions, etc.”

According to court filings and oral arguments in the case, Skoric had been prescribed medical marijuana by a Vermont doctor and used it off duty to treat chronic pain. During a random drug screening at his work for the transit district he tested positive for marijuana and was fired, the filings stated.

The Rutland-based transit authority was required to conduct the testing of employees as a result of Federal Transit Administration regulations.  

The state Department of Labor denied Skoric’s later claim seeking unemployment benefits, stating that he had engaged in “misconduct” under state law, thus making him ineligible for full unemployment benefits. As a result of the ruling, Skoric was only eligible for a portion of the unemployment benefits. 

Skoric challenged the labor department’s decision, filing a petition with the Vermont Employment Security Board, seeking a ruling on whether the off-duty use of medical cannabis constituted “misconduct” under the Vermont’s Unemployment Compensation Act.

The Vermont Employment Security Board then upheld the labor department’s decision, filings in the case stated. 

Skoric represented himself in an appeal before the Vermont Supreme Court in May, contending in his arguments to the justices that the state had misinterpreted the law.

“My position is that the off-duty use of cannabis for state-sanctioned medical purposes cannot and should not be qualified as misconduct by the state,” he told the justices.

The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, along with Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform and Disability Rights Vermont, filed a brief with the court in support of Skoric. 

The ACLU of Vermont, through a spokesperson Friday, stated in an email that because the Vermont Supreme Court “ended up ruling on standing rather than the merits, we aren’t in a position to weigh in.”

Skoric, in his email Friday, stated that he was awaiting word from the ACLU of Vermont on how, and if, he would be pursuing any other legal avenues as part of the appeal.