Cases

WCAT Decision: D.N.

This is a case involving workplace bullying and harassment. TGC lawyer Fred Wynne, on behalf of the employee, successfully appealed WorkSafeBC’s denial of compensation for mental distress.

The Tribunal held the following:

Based on the worker’s unrefuted testimony, I find that he experienced a series of targeted events which constitute harassment in the workplace, which consisted of some events that on their own would be considered significant stressors, and others which would not stand on their own as significant stressors. However, notwithstanding that many of these events would not stand on their own as significant stressors, I find that the worker’s evidence established a pattern of seemingly benign or trivial individual events that when viewed as a whole consisted of harassment towards the worker.

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Matthews v. Ocean Nutrition Canada Ltd., 2020 SCC 26

Courts should ask two questions when determining whether the appropriate quantum of damages for breach of an implied term to provide reasonable notice includes bonus payments. First, courts should consider the employee’s common law rights and examine whether, but for the termination, the employee would have been entitled to the bonus or benefit as part of their compensation during the reasonable notice period. Second, if so, courts should determine whether the terms of the employment contract or bonus plan unambiguously take away or limit that common law right.

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…this Court has been emphatic in recognizing that, in addition to whatever financial dimension work entails, a person’s employment is “an essential component of [their] sense of identity, self-worth and emotional well-being” (Reference re Public Service Employee Relations Act (Alta.), 1987 CanLII 88 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 313, at p. 368). To this end, it is understandable that employees seek some recognition that they have been mistreated, reflecting that they feel it unfair, beyond any compensatory matter, that they were forced to quit in such circumstances.

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