The perfume lawsuit....

[Dr Mordrid]

Bear in mind that the civil courts in and around Detroit have the rep of being a lottery system with high odds of payoff.

Personally I find nail salons, and their clouds of noxious vapors, much more irritating than any perfume.

Detroit News story....

Judge says perfume lawsuit can proceed

A Detroit city planner says co-worker's scent interferes with job performance, breathing.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- A city of Detroit planner can proceed with her lawsuit alleging a co-worker's perfume made it difficult for her to breathe and impossible to do her job, a federal judge has ruled.

In an opinion released late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff rejected the city's attempt to have Susan McBride's lawsuit, filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act, dismissed.

McBride "has produced evidence that her breathing is significantly restricted" by a co-worker's perfume, and she has a potential claim, Zatkoff ruled.

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Both McBride's Detroit attorney and the chairwoman of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation said Wednesday that Zatkoff's decision to allow the lawsuit to proceed is significant.

"He recognizes that this is the type of claim that's viable," said attorney Ann Curry Thompson, who represents McBride. "These are types of claims that in many jurisdictions ... are sort of pooh-poohed and are not taken seriously."

Grant Ha, the attorney representing the city in the lawsuit, did not return a phone call Wednesday. Ha said in a June court filing that "there is no medical diagnosis of the alleged condition," and McBride "is not disabled because she is not substantially impaired in a major life activity."

But Zatkoff, who sits in Port Huron, found that McBride's difficulty breathing as a result of her co-worker's perfume does present a potential claim under the federal law designed to protect the disabled from discrimination in public places and the workplace. He dismissed McBride's claims that her chemical sensitivity also impairs her ability to shop for detergents, speak, interact with others, and reproduce.

It's not clear that the city took reasonable steps to accommodate McBride's condition, the judge ruled.

Alison Johnson, chairwoman of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation in Topsham, Maine, said she welcomes Zatkoff's decision to let the lawsuit proceed.

"These perfume sensitivities are very real, and I can't tell you how many lives they are ruining," Johnson said. "Maybe there's beginning to be recognition that these things are serious."

McBride is seeking unspecified damages. Thompson said the major goal of the lawsuit is not monetary damages but "to educate people about the issue and seek voluntary compliance, where possible."

The city is continuing to fight the lawsuit, which could be headed to trial next year.

[MultimediaMan]

They're trying it under ADA; this lawsuit is doomed procedurally. I have been involved with several ADA-type lawsuits (on both sides of the aisle) over the past several years as a witness and a facilitator.

No previous diagnosis of the condition or an obvious need = no ADA accomodation required.

Even if she does find an allergenist who will back up her claim, she is working in an environment where the issue of the accomodation is another person. Not an inanimate object. This is unenforceable, and reverse discriminatory.

[Kruzin]

I worked at a private school (run in a 19th century mansion), and the old man that ran the place (and lived in the upper floors) claimed to be extremely bothered by perfumes, colognes, and scented deodorants. If he could smell anything, he would stop whatever was going on to find the smell, and get rid of it.

Once, during a staff meeting, he insisted he could smell someone's perfume, and had one of the other teachers walk around the table sniffing everyone to determine who it was. The next day, everyone had a bar of glycerin soap in their mailboxes, along with a memo to use it every day.

One admin gal who had a particular dislike for the guy admitted to me that she always made sure she had plenty perfume on, just to make sure he stayed away from her.

Odd part was, that the old man cooked fish for lunch every day, and at least twice a week, he'd forget it was on the stove and it would burn. The whole school could smell it, but he never could.

Wierd old man. SERIOUS pack rat, never threw anything away. Took some pics of the place when I was there:

[Brian Ellis]

Working with hundreds of volatile organic compounds, often halogenated, my nasal chromatograph was used to all sorts of odours but there was only one which I found nauseating, for some unknown reason: acetone. However, I had an employee who bedaubed herself liberally with an Estée Lauder perfume, which was so cloying that my contacts with her were kept to a minimum. My wife felt likewise. She was a good and conscientious worker who was on our secretarial staff for about 18 months. For some unknown reason, she topped herself about 2 or 3 years after she left us with an OD of sleeping pills.

[Nowhere]

Brian, w8...so...you're immune to nauseating effects of such volatile organic compunds as, say, chloroform?

Regarding topic and, partly, what Kruzin says...I can somehow understand those "oversensitive" people... Note: I don't think I was ever bothered by perfume/etc. smell emanating from somebody, however - beeing in a room (or even next to it) in which somebody used a perfume (especially/exlusivelly(?) a cheap one, that includes practically all air refresheners - not those which emit the smell all the time, just the "on demand" ones) is highly irritating for me. Yeah, the smells are sort of nice, but in this amount they are absolutelly unbearable. But many people don't seem to mind/realise there might be something not allright when they pour ridiculous amounts of does on themselves/into the room...

Contrast that with cooked fish given as an example - it's only "sort of" bad smell...definatelly can be easily ignored (well, other than elavating hunger )

(otoh this is the place where many people burn trash in the winter, which is also highly irritating for me, smell-wise, even though I'm a smoker; still...nobody seems to mind very much...)

[Kruzin]

Contrast that with cooked fish given as an example - it's only "sort of" bad smell...definatelly can be easily ignored (well, other than elavating hunger )

Note that I NOT was talkin about 'cooked' fish....I was talking about BURNT fish. And I did not point out, I did not just meant burnt fish....i meant BURNT FISH. The old man was always in a rush to get everything done, and that included his cooking. He would always cook his fish on the highest setting on his stove, to get it cooked as quickly as possible. Then he'd leave his fish on the stove, on it's highest setting for 60+ minutes. And when it burnt, it BURNT. It would commonly fill the mansion with smoke. Yet he could not smell it.
But he could still smell the slightest hint of perfume or scented deoderant...

[Kruzin]

I guess my point here is, there are those who are physically sensitive to perfumes, or the ingredients of perfumes. Even though they may be oblivious to other things in the air around them, something in those perfumes/colognes/deodorants can trigger some sort of reaction with those people.
While it may not merit a lawsuit, it may merit some public awareness....

[Brian Ellis]

Brian, w8...so...you're immune to nauseating effects of such volatile organic compunds as, say, chloroform?

Chloroform is not nauseating, it has a quite pleasant, sweetish odour. I was not a sniffer inhaling great doses. Anything I smelled was incidental industrial or laboratory emissions, usually under normal conditions of use, with good work practices and ventilation. I would not be immune to chloroform as an anaesthetic, nor as a hepatotoxin: that was a substance I was very careful about because of its high toxicity and it was used only in the lab in a fume cupboard.

[Nowhere]

Yeah Kruzin, that's why I didn't mention burnt fish

And I wonder now if I'm not, to some degree, one of those people...when it comes to "natural" smells, I can at least perfectly tolerate many strong ones, except those which convey "danger" message (rotting, serious burning, etc.)

But I despise at least some "artificial" ones (luckily mostly when in excessive amount) more than many people around me, it would seem...

(ffs, I'm a smoker, and yet I can't stand burning trash in home heating stoves...but it seems there isn't much social uproar about it here :/ )

[High_Jumbllama]

My mother has trouble with smells such as bleach, overly strong perfume, garlic and a few others. She knows garlic is in the room even before she can smell it because of the reaction she has to it.

This is a real problem for some. Though why this had to progress to a law suit goes beyond the bounds of simple human decency.

[KRSESQ]

Christine is extremely sensitive to the smell of artificial cinnamon, in even the tiniest amounts. Red Hots, cinnamon-flavored gum, etc. all make her sinuses close and her throat go fuzzy and her head pound. However, natural cinnamon has no effect on her in any but the very largest amount, except to remind her how little she tolerates the artificial stuff.

With me it's the smell of peppermint schnapps, but not for any hystemic reason.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

With me and my asthma it's acetone (hence my aversion to nail salons) and tobacco smoke. Can't stand to be around either.

As for what is *deadly* to me - my Kryptonite if you will - it's raw carrots.

Had a very severe anaphylactic reaction (bad enough to require my wife to use an Epi-Pen & call a squad) in a restaurant from eating cole slaw with carrot shavings in it, this after 30 years of eating raw carrots as a young man - one of my favorite items on veggie trays until then. Also good was that the restaurant owners wife had emphysema so they had oxygen available.

It's been recently been shown a strong raction to Dau c 1 and carrot profilin are the primary problem. COOK the carrots and no problem, so the high temp is denaturing those proteins.

Now the rule is to be very careful and keep the Epi-Pen handy.

Symptoms: initial scratch in the throat, sneezing, wheezing then edema in my face and then my throat nearly swelled shut, severe rash, abdominal cramps etc. etc.

Not fun in the least.

[Nowhere]

//we now know his weak point, proceed with the plan!






(sorry, I know you've ended with "not fun...", but that didn't stop it from beeing slightly comical )

[High_Jumbllama]

[Claymonkey]

The smell that has the biggest impact on me is denatured alchohol. I did a lot of printmaking in college (etching, lithography, woodblock), but the style I did the most was aquatint (etching with dots instead of lines so you can get tone akin to newspaper photos). I was always EXTREMELY careful to use the chemicals under the hood. Except for my last big project which was 5 8x10ish portraits and I kept a dish of denatured alchohol next to me to clean the brush I used on the plates. It was never proven that it's what caused what ended up being a three year migraine but the only time I get headaches now are from alchohol based cleaners of the especially odorous variety.

Moral to that.. be careful with ALL chemicals even the 'safe' ones.

Oh and if I spend to much time in a Michael's art supply store ,or get dragged into a Bed Bath and Beyond, and all the candles and 1000 different conflicting smells make me unhappy REAL fast.