Reaffirming Pasternack’s Narrow Duty for Drug-Testing Labs: Procedural Irregularities Alone Do Not State Negligence Under New York Law

Introduction

In Spencer v. Omega Laboratories, Inc., No. 24-2394-cv (2d Cir. Sept. 30, 2025) (summary order), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the Eastern District of New York’s dismissal of negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) claims brought by two pro se plaintiffs, Jahquan Spencer and Bernadine Cooley, against Omega Laboratories, Inc. and several Omega employees.

The dispute arose after hair drug tests performed in connection with New York State family court proceedings reported positive results for cocaine use. The plaintiffs alleged that the tests were negligently conducted and that Omega’s conduct caused them emotional distress. The district court dismissed their amended complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed, holding that the complaint did not plausibly allege a breach of a duty recognized by New York law.

While the Second Circuit resolved the case by summary order (and thus without precedential effect under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Local Rule 32.1.1), the decision offers a clear and instructive application of New York’s governing standard—drawn from the New York Court of Appeals’ decision in Pasternack v. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings—on when a drug-testing laboratory owes a duty and what must be pleaded to show breach. The court also reiterated core pleading principles under Ashcroft v. Iqbal and clarified that alleged procedural irregularities, absent plausible allegations of deviation from professionally accepted scientific standards, do not state a negligence or NIED claim against a testing lab.

Summary of the Opinion

The Second Circuit reviewed de novo the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal and, construing the pro se complaint liberally, held that:

Under New York law, a drug-testing laboratory may owe a duty to a test subject, but that duty is narrowly confined to adhering to “professionally accepted scientific testing standards” in the testing of biological samples, per Pasternack v. Lab’y Corp. of Am. Holdings, 27 N.Y.3d 817 (2016).
The plaintiffs’ allegations—such as suppressed identifying information on some chain-of-custody form copies, a missing time of day on one form, and delayed reporting of results—did not plausibly show a deviation from those scientific standards.
Cooley’s argument that her August 2018 negative hair test undermined her July 2018 positive result was unpersuasive because the samples were taken five weeks apart, tested differently, and even the August test, though reported “negative,” detected low levels of cocaine.
Without a plausible allegation of breach of the limited duty recognized by New York law, both negligence and NIED claims fail.
Fraud-based claims were not pursued on appeal and were therefore abandoned. See Green v. Dep’t of Educ. of City of New York, 16 F.4th 1070 (2d Cir. 2021).

The court affirmed the district court’s judgment.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Pasternack v. Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, 27 N.Y.3d 817 (2016): The New York Court of Appeals held that while a drug-testing lab can be liable to a test subject for negligent scientific testing, the duty is “limited to those circumstances where a drug laboratory fails to adhere to professionally accepted scientific testing standards in the testing of the biological sample.” The Second Circuit relied squarely on this limitation, concluding that the plaintiffs’ allegations concerned paperwork irregularities and timing—not departures from accepted scientific methodology—and thus did not state a breach of the recognized duty.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009): The court reiterated that a complaint must contain enough factual matter to state a claim that is plausible on its face, and legal conclusions do not suffice. Here, the plaintiffs’ assertions that the tests were “negligent” were not backed by plausible factual content showing deviation from scientific standards.
Mazzei v. The Money Store, 62 F.4th 88 (2d Cir. 2023): The Second Circuit applied de novo review to the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal and drew reasonable inferences in favor of the pro se plaintiffs, but still required plausible allegations under Iqbal/Twombly.
McLeod v. Jewish Guild for the Blind, 864 F.3d 154 (2d Cir. 2017) (per curiam): The court acknowledged liberal construction for pro se filings, but emphasized that even liberally construed complaints must meet plausibility requirements and cannot rest on conclusory statements.
Francis v. Kings Park Manor, Inc., 992 F.3d 67 (2d Cir. 2021) (citing Ornstein v. N.Y.C. Health & Hosps. Corp., 10 N.Y.3d 1 (2008) and Taggart v. Costabile, 14 N.Y.S.3d 388 (2d Dep’t 2015)): The court recited New York’s NIED elements: breach of a duty owed, emotional harm, causation, and circumstances guaranteeing the genuineness of the harm. Because the plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege a breach of duty, the NIED claim necessarily fell as well.
Green v. Department of Education of the City of New York, 16 F.4th 1070 (2d Cir. 2021): The court applied abandonment principles to hold that issues not raised on appeal—here, fraud-based claims—are forfeited.

Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeded in two steps intertwined by the Iqbal plausibility framework and New York duty principles for laboratory testing:

Narrow Duty Under New York Law: Pasternack confines a lab’s duty to test subjects to adherence to professionally accepted scientific testing standards. The plaintiffs’ allegations focused on issues such as a missing collection time, suppressed identifying information on copies of the chain-of-custody forms, and delayed reporting. None of these, without more, plausibly indicates a failure to follow recognized scientific protocols in sample analysis (e.g., extraction, washing/decontamination, analytical methods, confirmatory testing, controls/calibration, metabolite analysis).
No Plausible Breach Alleged: Although the plaintiffs characterized these irregularities as evidence of negligence, the complaint did not identify any specific scientific standard or protocol that Omega failed to meet, nor did it plausibly connect the alleged irregularities to compromised analytical integrity. With respect to Cooley’s reliance on a later negative hair test, the court highlighted that the August test was performed five weeks after the July collection, employed different testing methodologies, and, critically, still detected low levels of cocaine notwithstanding a “negative” report—undercutting any inference that the July positive resulted from negligent testing. Accordingly, the complaint did not plausibly allege breach, dooming both the negligence and NIED claims.

Impact

Although non-precedential, this summary order is likely to be cited persuasively in New York laboratory-negligence cases for several propositions:

Pleading specificity is essential. Plaintiffs must identify concrete, professionally accepted scientific standards and plausibly allege how the laboratory deviated from those standards in testing their samples. Administrative discrepancies or documentation issues—without a reasoned link to the scientific testing process—will rarely suffice.
Temporal and methodological differences blunt inferences from later negative tests. A later “negative” result, particularly when collected weeks later or analyzed differently, will not, without more, plausibly suggest negligence in an earlier positive. The court’s emphasis that the later test still detected low-level cocaine underscores that “negative” may simply mean below a reporting cutoff, not the absence of analyte.
NIED claims track negligence. Because NIED requires a breach of duty as an element, failure to plausibly allege breach under Pasternack typically defeats NIED as well—before courts even reach the “guarantee of genuineness” requirement.
Pro se liberality has limits. Even liberally construed pro se complaints must satisfy Iqbal’s plausibility standard with factual content tethered to the governing legal duty.
Family court context does not expand a lab’s duty. The fact that testing occurred in connection with sensitive proceedings (e.g., custody) does not enlarge the laboratory’s duty beyond adherence to professionally accepted scientific testing standards recognized under New York law.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Professionally accepted scientific testing standards: These are the field’s consensus methods and controls for reliable analysis, such as use of validated analytical techniques (e.g., GC-MS or LC-MS/MS confirmation), appropriate calibrators and quality controls, proper decontamination/washing of hair to address external contamination, metabolite profiling (e.g., benzoylecgonine, norcocaine), and adherence to accreditation or validation protocols. New York recognizes a lab duty to follow these standards in testing the sample—not to comply with every administrative or non-scientific procedural requirement.
Chain-of-custody: This documents a sample’s handling from collection to analysis. While critical to integrity, alleged paperwork irregularities (like a missing time of day on a form or inconsistent redactions on copies) must be plausibly tied to a risk of misidentification or contamination that affects the scientific testing to support a negligence claim against the lab. Mere administrative discrepancies, standing alone, may be insufficient.
Plausibility pleading (Iqbal/Twombly): A complaint must do more than assert conclusions; it must include factual content that makes the claim plausible, not merely possible. Courts accept factual allegations as true at the motion-to-dismiss stage, but not bare legal conclusions.
Hair testing and “negative” results: Hair tests often report results relative to a cutoff threshold. A “negative” can mean the analyte was present but below the reporting cutoff. Differences in collection time (e.g., five weeks apart) and testing methodology can change detection outcomes. Thus, a later negative does not necessarily contradict an earlier positive, and does not on its own imply negligent testing of the earlier sample.
Negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED): In New York, NIED requires (1) breach of a duty, (2) emotional harm, (3) causation, and (4) circumstances guaranteeing the genuineness of the harm (e.g., the direct-duty category or other indicia of authenticity). If there is no plausible breach, the NIED claim fails.
Summary orders and their use: Under FRAP 32.1 and Local Rule 32.1.1, Second Circuit summary orders may be cited, but they are non-precedential. They can be persuasive, especially where they synthesize and apply controlling state law decisions like Pasternack.

Practical Implications and Guidance

For litigants contemplating negligence claims against drug-testing laboratories under New York law, this decision underscores the importance of grounding allegations in the science:

Identify specific, professionally accepted scientific standards applicable to the test at issue (for hair testing, consider consensus documents such as those from professional societies and validation/accreditation benchmarks).
Allege how the lab deviated from those standards in testing the plaintiff’s specific sample (e.g., skipped confirmatory testing, failed quality control checks, improper wash procedures, absence of metabolite confirmation indicative of ingestion rather than contamination).
Connect any administrative or paperwork irregularities to a plausible impact on the scientific integrity of the analysis (e.g., mislabeling or custody gaps that credibly risk sample swap or contamination).
Be cautious drawing inferences from later “negative” tests, particularly when separated by time or using different methodologies; explain, with specifics, why the later result undermines the earlier test from a scientific standpoint.

Conclusion

The Second Circuit’s affirmance in Spencer v. Omega Laboratories, Inc. reflects a consistent application of New York’s narrow duty framework for laboratory negligence claims: plaintiffs must plausibly allege a deviation from professionally accepted scientific testing standards to proceed. Administrative irregularities and timing issues, without a concrete nexus to compromised scientific methodology, do not suffice. This holding, although articulated in a non-precedential summary order, reinforces Pasternack’s core principle and provides practical guidance for pleading and defending laboratory-negligence and NIED claims arising from drug testing, including in sensitive contexts such as family court proceedings.

Key takeaways:

The duty owed by a drug-testing lab to a test subject under New York law is limited to adherence to professionally accepted scientific testing standards.
To survive dismissal, plaintiffs must plead facts showing a plausible breach of those standards—not merely paperwork discrepancies or delayed reporting.
Later negative tests, if temporally or methodologically distinct, will not by themselves plausibly suggest earlier negligence, especially where low-level analyte presence is still detected.
Failure to plausibly allege breach defeats both negligence and NIED claims.
Issues not raised on appeal are deemed abandoned.

In sum, Spencer serves as a careful reminder: in drug-testing tort litigation under New York law, the science—and the pleading of how it was allegedly mishandled—matters most.