Quote:
Originally Posted by
merry.waters 
There is actually no law! May be I did get it wrong. My dictionary concludes, that the city of Detroit urged THEIR employees to avoid fragrance in office. I read it not as a law but a rule of conduct that is explicitly instantiated by the city authorities for their, the cities employees. Employees are asked to comply to this rule, these employees are URGED to avoid, but fragrance is not prohibited.
This rule of conduct has NOT been spoken by the court. It even might have been instantiated before - by the city authorities!
This relates only to city employees, true. However, I do not think that this should be interpreted as a suggestion rather than prohibition. The specific wording is:
Our goal is to be sensitive to employees with perfume and chemical sensitivities. In order to accommodate employees who are medically sensitive to the chemicals in scented products the City of Detroit requests that you refrain from wearing scented products, including but not limited to colognes, after-shave lotions, perfumes, deodorants, body/face lotions, hair sprays or similar products, the City of Detroit also asks you to refrain from the use of scented candles, perfume samples from magazines, spray or solid air fresheners, room deodorizers, plug-in wall air fresheners, cleaning compounds or similar products. Our employees with medical chemical sensitivities thank you for your cooperation.
Variations of this text are to be posted in several buildings, in lobbies, sent to directors of all city departments, sent as notifications to all city employees, sent as a city wide email notifying employees to contact HR regarding complaints regarding compliance with the policy, printed in their New Employee Manual, and included in a new HR training section regarding chemical sensitivities.
The "urged" language does not appear in the official settlement, which can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.onpointnews.com/docs/mcbride_settlement.pdf
Additionally, I read through the original court opinion regarding the lawsuit. (I was hoping they would name the perfume in question, but they didn't.) However, I thought it was interesting that in the original lawsuit, Susan McBride claimed that in addition to impairments in breathing, she is unable to have children because of her chemical sensitivities.
She claimed that a medication she was taking to deal with the symptoms of her sensitivity contraindicated the fertility treatments she was having. Apparently, she can't have a baby because of her co-worker's perfume.
That part got dismissed (thankfully):
For the reasons set forth above, the Court concludes that Plaintiff may proceed with her claim of disability based on the major life activity of breathing, but Plaintiffs claim of disability based on detergent shopping, speaking, interacting with others and reproduction are dismissed.
The full 14-page opinion can be read here:
http://howappealing.law.com/McBrideVsDetroitOpinion.pdf