Legal Help with Employment Situation

[MichaelTampa]

I know many on this board are here as parents, and not as much as patients, but, I'll take a stab here just in case.

 

I have extreme sensitivities to perfumes, and my company recently added a perfume machine to the men's restroom. They like to call them deodorizers, but the reality is, they do nothing to remove odor, they only add the odor the room. In any event, I asked for it to be removed, and my request was denied. I figured I would just file another ADA request with the medical director / lawyer person who is employed by the company and accepts/rejects any ADA reqeusts for accomodation. I have had a couple such requests already approved related to my TS and fluorescent lights, and figured this was a slam dunk case, although very frustrated that they made me go through the trouble and delay of the process.

 

I was very surprised to see he eventually rejected the request, and has more or less closed the communication channel by refusing to answer any questions regarding why, other than stating that he does not see "enough compelling evidence" to accept it. Before he made his decision, he did ask for me to tell him which chemical in the product was causing the problem, so they could put a perfume in there without that specific chemical. I did explain that it is perfumes in general, it is sensory, not a particular chemical, I have just as much problems with the "natural" citrus based ones, for example.

 

I have tried an attempt to see if my boss can change management's mind regarding before going to a lawyer. (Management can honor my request regardless of the ADA medical director/lawyer, just like management can do so many things, it's just that if their ADA medical director/lawyer says they have to, then the definitely will.) These are the same people I asked initially, but now it is my boss instead. He initially got a "no" as well, but that they would think about it.

 

It looks to me like it is basically time for me to go to a lawyer specializing in handling these cases, and hopefully one exists. My basic question to anyone out here is, do you have any experience with any situation like this that would lead you to make any suggestions, in terms of how to find a good lawyer for this, or any other aspect of how to handle it?

 

As I explained to my boss a couple days ago, as part of asking him what he could do, if there was any other way, there is just something crazy about all the time and distraction and money that is about to be spent regarding a *$%^@! perfume sprayer in one restroom, and the potential for a legal hearing or trial or whatever, like this perfume is that important to them, but, it does look like here we are.

 

Michael

[Chemar]

Michael

 

the TSA may be able to give you guidance on this

http://www.tsa-usa.org

 

my son has a MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) diagnosis and so it was pretty easy for us to have accommodations related to perfumes at school...even his teachers were not to wear it, no air fresheners in the rooms etc

 

maybe you can get the diagnosis and therefore have the leverage. Our was given by the Integrative doc we were seeing at the time

[faith]

Michael,

don't know how large this office is, but maybe you could avoid that lav for now and just tell them you'll go to another floor. If its not a big place, then maybe the other peeps wouldn't mind just disabling that particular perfume thing in the one bathroom. I'm guessing they are giving you a hard time because someone is not liking the accomodations to you. but like I said, if you could get someone else on board that may feel the same way, or at least pretend they do, maybe that would help. .... If not, and you have to go thru legal hoops for this, I am guessing you are not gonna be too popular around the water cooler, aye? ..............

 

good luck

Faith

[MichaelTampa]

Chemar -- I had not thought about the TSA and MCS angles. Do you by chance know if MCS is covered by ADA? Was it some legal thing at school that required the accomodation, or just the MCS diagnosis scared them enough to be nice? We do have a few integrative doctors in town, and, though I have never had a reason to seek it out, would be shocked if getting a MCS diagnosis would be very difficult in my case.

 

Faith -- I work for a large international company, and the official ADA stuff is actually handled by someone in an entirely different city. So, I think even if it gets messy and costly and everything, it really won't matter at all to co-workers or management here where I work. More than anything, it will be just difficult for me to focus on actually working and keep all the negative feelings about the company in general from affecting my attitude toward work. Actually my boss was against a previous accomodation I requested, but, he said, if it was approved, he would be okay with it, and he absolutely has been fine. The restroom on my floor is really the last one to not get the perfume. It's difficult to piece together, but I believe they were really installed everywhere last year. I flamed the facilities people in an e-mail so bad at the time, I am sure my boss heard about my flame. I went out on disability about a week later (the perfume very likely contributed, but there were certainly other factors). When I returned 4 months later, it was gone from our floor only, and never a word about it, until recently, it was added to our restroom. When I complained, the human resources area seemed confused why it was all of a sudden a problem, and truly believed they had been there all along. They insist it is important "for obvious reasons, for the comfort of all employees", and asserted at the time that someone having "just allergies" would not cause them to remove it. I really would be surprised if any of the other employees who use the restroom care about the perfume one way or the other, so am not worried about their reaction to it being removed when that finally happens, if they were to find out I had anything to do about it. But, I do believe all that would be kept quite confidential.

[MichaelTampa]

Just took a look at the TSA website and gave them a call. They actually have information and professional referral service for ADA and many other situations. We'll see, but it really looks like if they will, at a minimum, be able to refer me to a lawyer that will be a lot better than hunting and pecking through random ADA lawyers.

[Chemar]

glad to hear that Michael

 

my son had a 504 plan at school and so they were legally bound to provide accommodations documented for his disabilities and dx

as sensory integration dysfunction is recognized as a comorbid condition with TS, plus the MCS letter from the doc...we had no problem getting the accommodations he needed