Montana: Employee Personnel File Access Requirements

No general private personnel-file access statute

Montana's current employment-relationship chapter does not require an ordinary
private employer to open a personnel file to a current or former employee. It
therefore supplies no general definition of covered personnel records, request
form, response deadline, inspection location, copying charge, correction
procedure, former-worker window, or refusal remedy.

The practical result is that any broader access ordinarily must come from an
employer policy, collective-bargaining agreement, or another law directed at a
particular kind of record. One such narrow law applies to workplace drug and
alcohol testing, but it does not open the rest of the personnel file.

Narrow test-report and rebuttal right

The Workforce Drug and Alcohol Testing Act covers specified workers in
hazardous, security, public-safety or public-health, driving, and fiduciary
positions. When an employee is tested under a qualified program, the employer
must provide a copy of the test report. The employee must also receive an
opportunity to rebut or explain any test result.

At the employee's request, the employer must obtain an additional test of the
split sample from an independent laboratory selected by the tested person. The
employer pays if that additional result is negative; the employee pays if it is
positive. Section 39-2-209 states no fixed deadline or delivery location for
the report copy.

Testing information is confidential, subject to the Act's stated exceptions.
Information unrelated to controlled-substance or alcohol use must remain with
the medical review officer and may not be released to the employer.

What trips people up

The heading "Employee's right of rebuttal" does not establish a general right
to rebut performance reviews, discipline, or other HR-file material. It applies
only to results from a qualified drug or alcohol testing program.

Likewise, the required copy is the test report, not the employee's entire
personnel file. Montana law does not attach a general personnel-file access
right to the fact that a testing-related statement may be maintained in that
file.

Common questions

Can a current employee demand the whole personnel file under these sections?

No. The Act requires a copy of a covered test report, not general access to the
personnel file.

Can the employee dispute a positive test?

Yes. The employee must have an opportunity to rebut or explain the result and
may request an independent split-sample test under the statutory cost rule.

Does the narrow rule expressly cover former employees?

Section 39-2-209 refers to an employee tested under the qualified program and
does not create a general post-termination personnel-file right.

Statutes and sources

• MCA §§ 39-2-205 and 39-2-206(4): scope and covered employees under the
  Workforce Drug and Alcohol Testing Act — official text
  (accessed July 12, 2026).
• MCA § 39-2-209: test-report copy, split-sample retest, cost allocation, and
  rebuttal — official text
  (accessed July 12, 2026).
• MCA §§ 39-2-207(1)(j)-(k) and 39-2-211: confidentiality and permitted uses —
  official text
  (accessed July 12, 2026).