When One Person's Scent is Another Person's Disability -

A California jury recently awarded a $3.3 million verdict to a California Department of Transportation (“CALTRANS”) employee who alleged a variety of disability-related claims involving CALTRANS’s failure to properly accommodate his allergy to certain scents and his supervisor’s and co-workers’ retaliatory actions in light of his requests for accommodation. The basis of the award was failure to accommodate the plaintiff’s disability – his allergic reaction to certain scents – and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and a similar state law. While it may be easy to dismiss such claims as insignificant or overwrought, the jury awards and settlements described below make clear that these claims can be serious and must be addressed.

THE LAWSUIT … AND OTHERS -

According to his Complaint, plaintiff John Barrie began working for CALTRANS in Nevada City, California, in August 2005. Upon starting with CALTRANS, he informed his supervisor about and supplied medical records documenting a condition from which he suffered, allergic rhinitis. For the first five years of Barrie’s employment, CALTRANS informally accommodated Barrie’s condition, even placing him in charge of ordering cleaning agents for use by the department’s custodians. Barrie claimed that things changed when Donna Jones became his supervisor in March 2010. Jones “demonstrated a blatant disregard for [Barrie’s] disability, denigrated his sensitivity to chemicals, and repeatedly failed to enforce the policy regarding use of non-reactive cleaning agents” that Barrie’s former supervisor had put in place. (Complaint, ¶ 10.)