Brennan v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR UNIV. OF LOUISIANA SYSTEMS

691 So. 2d 324, 95 La.App. 1 Cir. 2396, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 873, 1997 WL 160459
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 27, 1997
Docket95 CA 2396
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 691 So. 2d 324 (Brennan v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR UNIV. OF LOUISIANA SYSTEMS) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brennan v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR UNIV. OF LOUISIANA SYSTEMS, 691 So. 2d 324, 95 La.App. 1 Cir. 2396, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 873, 1997 WL 160459 (La. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

691 So.2d 324 (1997)

John Patout BRENNAN
v.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA SYSTEMS.

No. 95 CA 2396.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

March 27, 1997.

*325 Murphy Foster, III, Baton Rouge, for Plaintiff-Appellee John Patout Brennan.

Cecilia Woodley, New Orleans, for Intervenor-Appellant National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Winston Decuir, Baton Rouge, for Defendant-Appellant Board of Trustees for the University of Louisiana Systems.

Before LOTTINGER, C.J., and SHORTESS, FOIL, GONZALES and FOGG, JJ.

LOTTINGER, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff, John Patout Brennan (Brennan), a student-athlete at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL), tested positive for drug use in the second of three random drug tests administered by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Brennan requested and received two administrative appeals in which he contended that the positive test results were "false" due to a combination of factors, including heavy drinking and sexual activity the night before the test, and his use of nutritional supplements. Following the unsuccessful appeals, USL complied with the NCAA regulations and suspended Brennan from intercollegiate athletic competition for one year. Brennan brought this action against USL's governing body, the Board of Trustees for University of Louisiana Systems (Board of Trustees), seeking to enjoin enforcement by USL of the suspension.

In his petition, Brennan alleged that, by requiring him to submit to the NCAA's drug testing program, USL violated his right of privacy and deprived him of a liberty and property interest without due process in contravention of Article I, Sections 2 and 5 of the Louisiana Constitution. The NCAA moved to intervene on the grounds that the drug testing policies and procedures that Brennan placed at issue were developed, administered, conducted and enforced by the NCAA. The intervention was granted.

Following a two day trial, the trial judge entered oral reasons for judgment. Initially, the trial judge stated that he would "pretermit any consideration of the several constitutional issues ... since those issues are mooted by the court's decision." The trial judge then concluded that Brennan was entitled to the preliminary injunction because "the subject *326 test results on the plaintiff based on the one blood sample taken from him was flawed, and therefore that sample should not have been the basis of ... disciplinary action against the plaintiff...."[1]

The Board of Trustees and the NCAA appealed and assigned the following error:

Having declined to address the only causes of action asserted by Brennan, and having failed to find that Brennan was likely to succeed on the merits of any other cognizable cause of action, it was improper for the district court to issue a preliminary injunction in favor of Brennan.

VALIDITY OF THE DRUG TEST

Prior to discussing the assignment of error, it is necessary to review the trial judge's finding that the drug test results were flawed.

A court of appeal may not set aside a trial court's or a jury's finding of fact in the absence of "manifest error" or unless it is "clearly wrong," and where there is a conflict in the testimony, reasonable evaluations of credibility and reasonable inferences of fact should not be disturbed upon review. Weatherford v. Commercial Union Insurance, 94-1793, 94-1927, p. 5 (La. 2/20/95); 650 So.2d 763, 765-66; Stobart v. State, Department of Transportation and Development, 617 So.2d 880, 882 (La.1993). If the trial court or jury findings are reasonable in light of the record reviewed in its entirety, the court of appeal may not reverse those findings even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Weatherford, 650 So.2d at 766; Rosell v. ESCO, 549 So.2d 840, 844 (La.1989).

Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be manifestly erroneous or clearly wrong. Ferrell v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., 94-1252, p. 4 (La. 2/20/95); 650 So.2d 742, 745-46; Rosell, 549 So.2d at 844. When findings are based on determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses, the manifest error/clearly wrong standard demands great deference to the trier of fact's findings. Ferrell, 650 So.2d at 746; Rosell, 549 So.2d at 844. An appellate court may find manifest error or clear wrongness in a finding purportedly based upon a credibility determination where documents or objective evidence so contradict the witness's story, or the story itself is so internally inconsistent or implausible on its face, that a reasonable fact finder would not credit the witness's story. Ferrell, 650 So.2d at 746; Stobart, 617 So.2d at 882. This principle of review is based not only upon the trial court's better capacity to evaluate live witnesses, but also upon the proper allocation of trial and appellate functions between the respective courts. Weatherford, 650 So.2d at 766.

In order to reverse a factfinder's determinations on the basis of manifest error, the court of appeal must satisfy a two-part test: (1) the appellate court must find from the record that a reasonable factual basis does not exist for the finding of the trial court, and (2) the appellate court must also determine that the record establishes that the finding is clearly wrong. Weatherford, 650 So.2d at 766; Stobart, 617 So.2d at 882.

After reviewing the record in this case in its entirety, we conclude that the trial judge committed manifest error in finding that the drug test results were flawed.[2] The trial judge gave the following oral reasons:

The court finds that the T/E test performed on Mr. Brennan, the plaintiff in this case, was flawed with respect to its application and interpretation with respect to Mr. Brennan. He was ingesting dietary supplements. He had consumed alcohol the night and early morning of the test, had engaged in sexual conduct, or as he *327 testified "had sex," all of which could have caused an aberration of the T/E ratio to cause it to produce a false positive reading.... The intervenor NCAA's own expert [Dr. Don Catlin] agreed that a more accurate procedure than that used in this case would be to take another urine sample from the subject some few days after the original urine sample, that is long enough after the first sample to preclude any false positive result due to the influencing factor[s] of sex, alcohol over-the-counter dietary supplements, et cetera, which would be somewhat transient, but soon enough after the original sample to preclude a negative result if the plaintiff was actually taking [anabolic] steroids. It was Dr. Catlin. He estimated, as I recall, that this period was to be at least three weeks from the date of the last taking of some antibiotic [sic] steroids within which the ratio would still result in a positive finding. In this case only one sample was taken, divided into two parts and each part tested at different times with somewhat different results, which shows two things; the sensitivity of the test as well as the correctness of the premise of the court and Dr. Catlin that an aberration in the test causing a false positive for such activities as sex, consumption of alcohol and ingestion of dietary supplements, would likely be resolved by a taking of a further sample within the prescribed period of time to eliminate any question regarding a transient aberration of the test result.

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Bluebook (online)
691 So. 2d 324, 95 La.App. 1 Cir. 2396, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 873, 1997 WL 160459, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brennan-v-board-of-trustees-for-univ-of-louisiana-systems-lactapp-1997.