Source: http://medicolegal.tripod.com/smokingonthejob.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 03:50:33+00:00

Document:
Both employers and employees need to know the laws applicable to smoking on the job. For individualized legal advice tailored to your situation, contact a lawyer. Let's start with basic facts.
Obviously, as "ultrahazardous," cigarettes' toxic chemicals far exceed the "Threshold Limit Values." Wherefore injuries and deaths are common, foreseeable, "natural and probable consequences." TTS exposure causes Increased Risk of Death. This violates people's right to "fresh and pure air."
There is also the issue, or duty, of warning nonsmokers of the danger of toxic tobacco smoke (TTS), involuntary smoking, second-hand smoke, Shaw v Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp, 973 F Supp 539 (D Md, 1997) (citing issues of negligent misrepresentation and failure to warn; and intentional misrepresentation), and Wolpin v Philip Morris, Inc, 974 F Supp 1465; 1997 US Dist LEXIS 12915; 1997 WL 535218 (D SD Fla, 1997).
The TLV's are law. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 USC § 651 - § 678 forbids hazards. Implementing regulations such as 29 CFR § 1910.1000 provide specific examples of emissions hazards such as carbon monoxide (limit of 50 parts per million = the "TLV"). An employer has a duty to prevent and suppress hazardous conduct by employees. National Realty and Construction Co, Inc v Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 160 US App DC 133, 141; 489 F2d 1257, 1266, n 36 (CADC, 1973).
The cited 29 USC § 651 - § 678 forbids behaviors and hazards (meaning, substances concerning which regular exposure foreseeably leads to "material impairment of [employee] health").
TTS is an "extraordinary hazard," see definition: "One not commonly associated with a job or undertaking. If hazards are increased by what other employees do, and injured employee has no part in increasing them, they are 'extraordinary.'" Stone v Howe, 92 N.H. 425, 32 A.2d 484, 487."—Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed (St. Paul: West Publishing Co, 1979), p 527. TS is also an "extraordinary risk," "one lying outside of the sphere of the normal, arising out of conditions not usual in the business. It is one which is not normally and and necessarily incident to the employment. It is one which may be obviated by the exercise of reasonable care by the employer." Black's Law Dict., supra, p. 527.
The smoker of cigarettes is constantly exposed to levels of carbon monoxide in the range of 500 to 1,500 parts per million when he or she inhales cigarette smoke. See G. H. Miller, "The filter cigarette controversy," 72 J Indiana St Med Assoc (#12) 903-905 (Dec 1979). This quantity exceeds the legal TLV limit, hence, renders smoking illegal without further ado.
(i) general words of the safety law, the "general duty clause,"
(ii) and the specific numerics.
An employer who said, 'we'll obey the number, not the general rule' was found guilty of noncompliance when a Detroit-area worker was killed on the job as a result. That case title is International Union, UAW v General Dynamics Land Systems Division, 259 US App DC 369; 815 F2d 1570 (1987) cert den 484 US 976; 108 S Ct 485; 98 L Ed 2d 484 (1987).
The employer was also charged criminally in Michigan courts, People v General Dynamics Land Sys Div, 175 Mich App 701; 438 NW2d 359 (1989) lv app den 435 Mich 860 (1990).
The law provides that the solution to cigarette-caused harm is to occur up-front, in advance, BEFORE endangerment happens. Case law such as Gitlow v New York, 268 US 652; 45 S Ct 625; 69 L Ed 1138 (1925), shows that even with mere words "inimical to the public welfare," the law mandates to "suppress the threatened danger in its incipiency," not await the full-blown harm. (That is why cigarette advertising is illegal, to prevent the hazard at the "incipiency").
When an employer fails to discharge an employee using drugs (tobacco is a drug), and a "natural and probable consequence" such as death results, criminal charges are foreseeable, see People v Hegedus, 432 Mich 598; 443 NW2d 127 (1989); People v Chicago Magnet Wire Corp, 126 Ill 2d 356; 128 Ill Dec 517; 534 NE2d 962 (1989) cert denied sub nom Asta v Illinois, 493 U.S. 809; 110 S Ct 52; 107 L Ed 2d 21 (1989) (and wrongful death lawsuits).
You should also check your area laws. For example, in Michigan, manufacture, giveaway, and sale of cigarettes is illegal by law. Any use of illegal cigarettes is obvious misconduct. Precedents show that no court should aid a misconduct-committing party, e.g., BTC v Norton CMC, 25 F Supp 968, 969 (1938); and Buckman v HMA, 190 Or 154; 223 P2d 172, 175 (1950). "No one may take advantage of his own wrong," Stephenson v Golden, 279 Mich 710, 737; 276 NW 848 (1938). "[H]e who does the first wrong is answerable for all the consequent damages," Scott v Shephard, 96 Eng Rep 525, 526 (1773).
Federal case law is to the same effect, e.g., Service v Dulles, 354 US 363; 77 S Ct 1152; 1 L Ed 2d 1403 (1957) and Glus v Eastern District Terminal, 359 US 231, 232; 79 S Ct 760, 762; 3 L Ed 2d 770, 772 (1959). Such precedents show that a party cannot rely on its own wrongdoing as a defense, here, employers' aiding and abetting the illegal manufacture and sales, by aiding and abetting the on-the-job use of the illegal cigarettes.
In addition, in most if not all jurisdictions, most smoking arises from children having been illegally sold cigarettes. But for that illegality, there would be essentially no smoking on the job. The condition precedent for smoking (lawful sales in the first place) typically does not exist.
“Quod ab initio non valet in tractu temporis non convalescet.” That which is bad in its commencement improves not by lapse of time. “Quod initio non valet, tractu temporis non valet.” A thing void in the beginning does not become valid by lapse of time.—Black's Law Dictionary (St. Paul: West Pub, 5th ed, 1979), pp 1126-1127.
Smoking is hazardous. That is why there are laws against sales to minors, and against the illegal levels of emissions. Smokers are commonly foreseeably dangerous to themselves, and to others, and to property, e.g., by fires.
See also "Business Costs in Smoke-Filled Environments" (June 2004), citing 21 references on smoking related absenteeism and lost productivity, and increased maintenance and insurance rates.
Data exists "on the meaning of . . . smoking in connection with the incidence of accidents. The incidence of injuries rises as distinctly in the group of smokers as does the incidence of diseases of the repiratory pathways."
"The results show a prevalence of smokers in the group of injured workers."
Notice various reasons that "smoking causes injuries due to the loss of attention and to the occupation of hands or to the irritation of eyes, to the cough, etc., or . . . because the prohibition of smoking during some work operations is not strictly obeyed."—V. Engler, et al., "Work Injuries and Smoking," 35 Industrial Med and Surgery (#10) 880-881 (Oct 1966).
In the 1980 Transactions of the Society of Actuaries, Table 9, p. 200, shows the smoker death rate in “Motor vehicle accidents” as 2.6 times higher than the nonsmoker rate.
Such data provides insight on smoking and driving. Brain damage produces symptoms such as an impaired orientation for time, “for place,” “impairment of learning, comprehension, and judgment . . . with inability to think on higher conceptual levels and to plan,” and “Impairment ot inner reality and ethical controls,” noted by James C. Coleman, Ph.D., in Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life (Scott, Foresman & Co., 5th ed., 1976), p. 461. The DSM-III cites symptoms that appear early (after only “at least several weeks”) in smokers, for example, “irritability,” “difficulty concentrating,” “restlessness,” and “drowsiness,” among others.
Thus there is “the well-established association between smoking and drinking and between drinking and automobile accidents,” says Dr. Joseph Stokes III, in The New Engl. J. of Med., Vol. 308(7), p. 393, 17 Feb 1983.
Note the scientific medical data measuring the increase in driving fatalities caused by smoking. TheWaller study, for example, found that smokers with less than 0.02% BAC experienced 3.16 times more fatal auto wrecks than nonsmokers with the same blood alcohol content. Perhaps even more startling was the finding that nonsmokers with 0.02-0.09% BAC had only 1.79 times more fatal wrecks than nonsmokers with less than 0.02% BAC. What that means is that smokers with little or no alcohol in the blood are nearly twice as likely to cause highway fatalities as nonsmokers with a moderate amount of alcohol in the blood. Reference Julian A. Waller, MD, "On Smoking and Drinking and Crashing," 86 N Y St J of Med (Issue # 9), September 1986.
Smoker Shannon Marie Bugge was killed by a train when "she decided to run across the tracks and buy cigarettes [and] was hit after she purchased the cigarettes and was returning," says "Woman killed in Detroit Lakes train accident identified" (7 April 2010).
brain damage. Symptoms of the latter include but are not limited to difficulty concentrating, acalculia, odd stereotyped gestures, impaired judgment and ethical and impulse controls, impulsiveness, and delusional thinking patterns.
Such data has long been known, for example, "in 1671 . . . the Italian biologist, Francesco Redi, published an account of the lethal effects."—Susan Wagner, Cigarette Country: Tobacco in American History and Politics (New York: Praeger, 1971), p 64.
"Wilson found that cigarette smokers reported about 45% more days lost from work per person per year due to illness of all kinds that did persons who had never smoked," pp 443-444. "Schmidt noted that the number of days of illness with restriction to bed was 44% higher for smokers than nonsmokers in the Federal Armed Forces," p 443. "Smith reported that employees who smoked had more workloss days than those who had never smoked. In every age group, as the number of cigarettes smoked per day increased, so also did sickness absence. The rate of absenteeism in those who smoked more than two packs per day was nearly twice that of non-smokers," p 443. —James A. Athanasou, "Sickness Absence and Smoking Behavior and Its Consequences: A Review," 17 Journal of Occupational Medicine (#7) 441-445 (July 1975).
"In the survey year 1964-1965 there were an estimated 399 million workdays lost in the United states; of these 77 million or 19% were excess workdays lost because of the higher rates which exist among persons who smoke. . . . Cigarette smokers had higher rates of disability than non-smokers whether measured as days lost from work, days spent ill in bed or days of restricted activity," p 443. "Higher rates of overall morbidity have been reported among cigarette smokers than non-smokers. People who smoke tend to have a greater incidence of ischemic heart disease, lung cancer and other brocnhopulmonary diseases, peptic ulcers and an overall larger proportion of chronic diseases." Athanasou, supra, p 441.
"It is no longer necessary to reaffirm in the industrial setting the association between smoking and serious disease . . . reported . . . and repeated time and again." Athanasou, supra, p 444.
And at premature careeer-end, note the need to account "for transfer out of, premature retirement from and death in service . . . as a result of emphysema, lung cancer, coronary heart disease and other smoking-related disease." Athanasou, supra, p 444.
Additionally, "Study: Obesity Increases Driver’s Risk Of Being In Car Accident" (7 August 2012), "morbidly obese drivers may be at increased risk of a crash due to weight-related health complications. Additionally, car designs that are less than sympathetic to larger frames could leave obese drivers in more critical condition following an accident."
In law, in fact, it is unlawful to even hire in the first place, persons posing a foreseeable danger. A nonsmoker can easily verify whether the employer's personnel office is negligent in this way. If a lawsuit becomes necessary, the injunction should order the employer to cease and desist the negligent hiring practices, and to undo the continuing effects of the past negligent hiring.
If you are easily offended, stop here.
TTS is "ultrahazardous." By 1836, it was already well-established "that thousands and tens of thousands die of diseases of the lungs generally brought on by tobacco smoking. . . . How is it possible to be otherwise? Tobacco is a poison. A man will die of an infusion of tobacco as of a shot through the head." —Samuel Green, New England Almanack and Farmer's Friend (1836).
Almost three decades ago, the Royal College of Physicians, Smoking and Health Now (London: Pitman Medical and Scientific Publishing Co, Ltd, 1971), p 9, called the cigarette death rate a "holocaust" due to the then "annual death toll of some 27,500." This high a death toll is not "accidental" but "premeditated." "Premeditation" means "thought of beforehand for any length of time, however short." See Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed (1990), p 1180.
Cigarettes' toxic emissions far above the "threshold limit vlaues" (TLV's) cause 37,000,000 U.S. deaths, according to the government's own data, in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) book entitled, Research on Smoking Behavior, Research Monograph 17, DHEW Pub No. ADM 78-581, Foreword, p v (Dec 1978).
Your reaction is, those "threshold limit values" which cigarette emissions so outrageously and egregiously exceed . . . they protect us! Safety inspectors are our friend. They are from the government, and they are here to help!
Yeah, right! Here is the rest of the story. The "threshold limit values" are never enforced, NEVER, against cigarette emissions despite their being law. When 42,000 ppm of carbon monoxide are being emitted, a "safety inspector" can record a "4.2" So you die!! Hah, hah, hah, hah!!, he laughs!
As Carrie Nation said in the alcoholism context a century ago, prosecutors do take bribes to not enforce some laws. As a cover-up measure, records falsification does occur, e.g., to under-report hazardous quantities, e.g., recording "42,000" as "4.2"
This author has seen it done!--ultra falsifying, record 42,000 as 4! In the cigarette emissions context, "threshold limit values" (TLV's) setting supposed maximum levels of exposure to toxic chemicals, are a mail-fraud scam to deceive workers into thinking they have protection. Falsifying the numbers to under-report exposure is easy. I've seen it done, to cover-up for an employer, the government inspector did the falsifying!
"If you poison your boss a little bit each day it's called murder; if your boss [or smoker coworker] poisons you a little each day it's called a Threshold Limit Value. —James P. Keogh, M.D." cited by Prof. Robert N. Proctor, Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p 153. Hah, hah!!
About "fifty-three per cent. of . . . abortions . . . are due to tobacco. . . . inhalation of tobacco smoke by pregnant mothers when sitting among smokers is sufficient to cause fatal poisoning of the fœtus."—Herbert H. Tidswell, M.D., The Tobacco Habit: Its History and Pathology (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1912), p 238. You are not only protecting yourself. You are protecting others, including the unborn, from "universal malice" deaths, as "pregnant women, and those who are suckling their children, should not be exposed to tobacco smoke."—Tidswell, supra, p 183.
Don't be bluffed by management promises to post "no-smoking" signs. They will likely not be enforced. Management policy and signs without enforcement are not upheld in court when harm results, see for example, the case of Allen v Posternock, 107 Pa Super 332; 163 A 336 (16 Dec 1932) (the smoker injured someone, by smoking violating a ban on smoking, but the ban was unenforced, so the company was found negligent anyway).
So now do you see how bosses get away with allowing smoking on the job? If you don't, let me say it direct: Via the total non-enforcement of the pertinent laws and regulations! See also our bribery website. Murder by toxic chemicals (especially hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide) exceeding the TLV's was illegal in Nazi Germany, but it was done all the time!! The fact that there is a law means nothing, when it is never enforced by the civil servants/judges whose job it is to do the enforcement!
But don't give up just yet. There is a way out, though one rarely attempted, and even more rarely, successfully. (This site is on successes, not the bribery-driven failures such as firings of nonsmokers for vainly reporting the violations, and then finding themselves retaliated against).
A nonsmoker employee who does not wish to be murdered (TLV'd to death) by cigarette emissions can successfully sue employers to obtain smoke-free conduct, examples at Leonard Perkins v Ford Motor Co, et al, Case No. 86-633018 CZ (Wayne County Cir Ct. Mich, 1986); Shimp v New Jersey Bell Telephone Co, 145 NJ Super 516; 368 A2d 408 (1976); and Smith v Western Electric Co, 643 SW2d 10 (Mo App, 1982). Here is the text of the injunction in the Shimp case. See also the Hall v Veterans Administration, Case No. 054-086-X0097 (EEOC, Detroit, Mich, 1986) bench order.
And see the case of Faragher v City of Boca Raton, 524 US 775; 118 S Ct 2275; 141 L Ed 2d 662 (CA 11, Fla, 26 June 1998), in which the Supreme Court had an on-job sexual harassment case, and deemed the employer vicariously liable, using the example concept of comparability to smoking-on-job as courts develop more understanding.
A mid-1999 case, Aviation West Corporation v Washington State Dep't of Labor and Industries, 138 Wash 2d 413; 980 P2d 701 (8 July 1999), involved the state government adopting a non-smoking rule akin to the ancient pure air precedents on the job. That also follows the ancient precedents, when the government itself did the suing to force offenders to stop violating the right to pure air.
As the legal right to "fresh and pure air" exists everywhere, do not deem a partial smoking ban as adequate. Why? Well, ask Dr. Kevorkian! He has learned that it is not legal to kill a person, even a consenting adult, ANYWHERE. The laws against killing people apply everywhere! There is no place, no "free-fire zone," as in combat, where it is ok to spray toxic chemicals and kill people! Wherefore partial bans are unconstitutional. See our website elaborating on the unconstitutionality of partial bans.
So "accept" all offers, then appeal, citing the offer of less than full compliance with the duty of "fresh and pure air" as showing bad faith on the perpetrator's part. The making of an offer shows that they recognize the hazard, and proves malice, specific intent to harm, by their refusal to eliminate the hazard.
You may have heard of the so-called nonsmokers' rights movement. Nonsmokers seek smoke-free conduct, the right to "fresh and pure air," on the job, due to the hazard to themselves. Sometimes they seek to use the Anti-Discrimination Act. Nonsmokers doing that is in a sense misdirected on this issue, although accurate, albeit by indirection. What does this convoluted material mean?
Being a nonsmoker is NORMAL. The right to "fresh and pure air" has existed for centuries. Smoke-free job sites were the norm for thousands of years! Moreover, it is not necessary to reach the issue of the hazard to nonsmokers. Reason: the employer's duty to prevent and suppress hazardous conduct arises when smokers endanger themselves (of course, activity caused by tobacco pushers), a point in time long before additional personnel (such as nonsmokers) are also endangered. So-called nonsmokers' rights cases such as the above-cited Shimp v N J Bell Tele Co, 145 N J Super 516; 368 A2d 408 (1976), and Smith v Western Elec Co, 643 SW2d 10 (Mo App 1982), were improperly pleaded. They addressed matters other than the hazard to smokers themselves, although the cases arrived at the right result—elimination of the cigarette hazard.
Some of you may have heard the claim that when a nonsmoker wants the safety and hiring laws enforced, wants the ancient right to "fresh and pure air" (a concept subsumed within standard nuisance law), what the nonsmoker is really asking for is the modern concept called "accommodation." Not so.
That 1973 "accommodation" concept did not even exist when the 1306 - 1757 "right to fresh and pure air" was being established!! A nonsmoker is not saying, "I'm a nonsmoker, I'm abnormal, or even subnormal, please, I'm begging, ‘accommodate abnormal little me.'" Absolutely not.
The "right to fresh and pure air" is an absolute right. Accommodation is a far lesser right, only applicable when the action you are seeking is deemed "reasonable." Typically that decision is made by smokers! And naturally they deem that TTS-control is "unreasonable!" Why surrender your absolute common law right, in favor of a far lesser one! Urging you to do that must be deemed a tobacco lobby scam to cheat you out of your Constitutional right (Ninth Amendment) to "fresh and pure air," to cheat you out of a fundamental common law right to protection from nuisances (listed in Tull v United States, 481 US 412 (CA 4, 28 April 1987), at footnote 5).
*schools, Tanton v McKenney, 226 Mich 245; 197 NW 510 (1924), etc.
Sometimes employers, to evade doing their duty to "eliminate" and "suppress" the hazard, will claim, 'we'll monitor the situation.' Yeah, 'monitor' and 'monitor,' until the hazard renders you sick or dead, then we'll deny any resultant claims!
The duty to eliminate hazards (behaviors or substances to which regular exposure foreseeably leads to "material impairment of [employee] health," of which tobacco smoke is the most notorious example) is "unqualified and absolute," says National Rlty. & C. Co, Inc v Occ. Safety & Health Rev Commission, 160 US App DC 133, 141; 489 F2d 1257, 1265 (1973).
The bottom line is that smokers are not hired to spew toxic chemicals nor to set fires!! So their doing so, is not a job ("employment") function. Smoking was controlled by employers long before any modern "accommodation" law. Smokers are not even to be hired in the first place.
Do not be conned or scammed into saying that you, nonsmoker, are abnormal, subnormal, etc., begging on your knees for "accommodation" or for reimbursement of your medical expenses. No, demand that the safety and hiring laws be enforced! Others get laws enforced.
Refusing you law enforcement is disparate treatment (employers enforce other laws! just not this one, the safety law!), a different form of discrimination than the "accommodation" issue. See the Hall v Veterans Administration, EEOC No. 054-086-X0097 (Detroit MI, 1986) case. And read the above linked websites if you have not already done so, especially the one on murder.
"[Indoor Air Quality] IAQ Already Regulated,"
Elizabeth Heitzman, "Hospitals ban all smoking on premises,"
Data on smoking as addictive means that smoking is not voluntary, not consented to, pursuant to standard accepted legal terms and definitions.
In any discussion that can become formal, it is wise to use legal terms and definitions with which employer and employee representatives, often lawyers, are familiar. This will help develop recognition of the fact that smokers' involuntary deaths (not to mention nonsmokers') meet criteria established in case law on poisoning and murder.
Case law shows that those in the media who provide disinformation leading to deaths can be held legally liable, details at the personal responsibility for words site. Disinformation by employers in support of smoking can also result in liability.
Medical recognition that cigarette-caused deaths were already at the "holocaust" level occurred in 1971. Case law provides for prosecution.
Count 1: Violation of the Common Law "Right to Fresh and Pure Air"
"The proof of the pattern or practice [of willingness to commit racketeering acts, hire dangerous people, allow hazardous acts, endanger others] supports an inference that any particular decision, during the period in which the policy was in force, was made in pursuit of that policy." Teamsters v U.S., 431 US 324, 362; 97 S Ct 1843, 1868; 52 L Ed 2d 396, 431 (1977).
RICO is the anti-organized crime law that the 22 September 1999 Department of Justice case cited to recover damages from tobacco companies. RICO covers all defined racketeering acts, generally, extortion, mail fraud, falsification of documents, killings, etc.
The benefit to the crime victim, the litigant, you, is that RICO provides for TRIPLE damages, pursuant to 18 USC § 1964.(c). In legal terms, this constitutes the value of the underlying claim, Basic Food Industries, Inc v Grant, 107 Mich App 685, 691; 310 NW2d 26, 29 (1981).
RICO is comparable to, and likely additional to, state law, for example, the Michigan trebling law, MCL § 600.2907, MSA § 27A.2907, as the harm caused is malicious. A pertinent Michigan trebling case is Pauley v Hall, 124 Mich App 255; 335 NW2d 197 (1983). Check your state for your pertinent laws and cases.
Paul H. Tobias and Susan Sauter, “Was Your Termination Discriminatory?” and Job Rights & Survival Strategies: A Handbook for Terminated Employees (NERI, 1997).
Prof. David Yamada, “Workplace Bullying and the Law” (12 March 2005).
Richard Peres, Dealing with Employment Discrimination (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), "losing one's job is the most adverse thing that can happen to a person in the employment world. A discharge for cause can have damaging and lasting consequences in one's career and life."
29 USC § 141 and 5 USC § 7117(a)(1), which provide that laws and government-wide regulations are non-negotiable, not subject to repeal by contract. See also West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319 US 624, 638; 63 S Ct 1178; 87 L Ed 1628 (1943) and Romer v Evans, 517 US 620; 116 S Ct 1620; 134 L Ed 2d 855 (1996) (no vote allowed to repeal constitutional rights). Employers are of course not allowed to negotiate mental disorders (smoking is a medically recognized mental disorder).
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References: § 651
 § 678
 § 1910
 § 651
 § 678
 § 1964
 § 600
 § 27
 § 141
 § 7117