perfume allergy/ accomodation

staunton · January 2008

I have an employee who is allergic to perfume. To accomodate her I moved her to another area in the office but she continues to complain. She wants us to implement a perfume free workplace but I think it will be difficult to enforce and will require me to discpline a lot a good employees. Are rules against wearing perfume commonly place in the work place? If so, could someone provide an overview of a policy. Also do you believe we have legal duty to do so to make this type of accomodation if the transfer has not worked. A policy like this is if implemented will cause a lot of dicord in the office since most of the employees are professional or semi professional who like to look and feel nice.

System · January 2008

>I have an employee who is allergic to perfume. To accomodate her I moved her
>to another area in the office but she continues to complain. She wants us to
>implement a perfume free workplace but I think it will be difficult to enforce
>and will require me to discpline a lot a good employees. Are rules against
>wearing perfume commonly place in the work place? If so, could someone
>provide an overview of a policy. Also do you believe we have legal duty to do
>so to make this type of accomodation if the transfer has not worked. A policy
>like this is if implemented will cause a lot of dicord in the office since
>most of the employees are professional or semi professional who like to look
>and feel nice.

Irie · January 2008

Staunton: This subject has been discussed at great length on this Forum. Try a search and I'm sure you will find an answer to your problem. Good luck.

staunton · January 2008

thank you. I am new to it and did not realize it.

Tony Kessler · January 2008

Staunton, I just searched the newsletter archives on this site (as a subscriber, you have full access to articles from past issues of all 50 state newsletters) and found two interesting related pieces. Here is the intro for the first one, from Indiana Employment Law Letter, January 2008 (how timely!):
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Fragrance sensitivity and the ADA

Can sensitivity to certain fragrances, including air freshener or a coworker's cologne, be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Recent opinions from federal courts and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) seem to suggest that might be the case, though an employee alleging such a claim must show severe symptoms to meet the ADA disability threshold. Requests for workplace accommodations for sensitivity to fragrance appear to be on the rise and are testing the boundaries of the meaning of "disability" under the law.
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Here is the intro for the second one, from New Jersey Employment Law Letter, September 2007:
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The scent of disability discrimination

A federal appeals court recently affirmed the dismissal of a disability discrimination claim based on perfume sensitivity. It found that the employer reasonably accommodated the employee by taking various measures, including prohibiting perfume in the workplace.
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If you (or anyone else) needs help navigating the search engine (behind the subscriber log-in) to find these articles, call me at (615) 661-0249 x 8068 or Customer Service at (800) 274-6774.

As Irie mentioned, you can also search previous threads on this Forum. Go to the "Search" button at the top of this page, then search for "allergy." A thread from last February on "Banning Flowers?" will show up. Hope this helps. tk

stilldazed · January 2008

I'm guessing that your issue is whether you have an ADA duty or a niceness duty, right? As you are probably aware, ADA is a case-by-case analysis, and the worker would have to be rendered unable to accomplish a major life activity by the sensitivity, such as breathing, communicating (including nonverbal forms of communication, seeing, etc.). Unless your worker's sensitivity reaches that level, you probably don't have an ADA issue. Therefore, you are talking about a niceness issue by your company for this 'one' worker. Unless there is a state regulation that requires something other than ADA, your would turn to your company's policy, and unless your company's policy stipulates that you will let the request of one control what you do for the masses, I think you're safe, i.e., no further legal duty.

I might suggest to her that a reasonable alternative is to move her, but it is unreasonable to change the HVAC system, it is reasonable that she consider wearing a face covering and unreasonable to expect everyone to suspend their personal preferences because of her. Unless your business is a perfume factory, the perfume has nothing to do with getting the job done. It would be reasonable to ask all workers to be considerate of each other, but unreasonable to implement a policy that stipulate no perfume. If you did that, the next step would be to police laundry detergents, air fresheners, kitchen aromas, . . ., essentially everything that has an aroma since the aroma is really the result of an antigen emitted into the air. If her complaint is real, the issue is the antigen not the accompanying scent. Sounds a little like a personal issue to me.

It is reasonable to ask folks to moderate scents they wear, and it is reasonable for that request to be in policy form if your workers provide services for sensitive populations (aged, young children, sick) as a routine part of customer service.

best wishes.

perfume allergy/ accomodation

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