An employer has been ordered to pay aggravated damages – in addition to lost wages – after firing an employee in retaliation for raising safety issues.
The employee worked at a hair salon. She suffered an injury at work as a result of unsafe working conditions. The employer did not take any steps to address the safety issues, nor did it report the injury to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
After the employee filed a complaint with the Ministry of Labour, the employer dismissed her. She then filed a safety-reprisal complaint with the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The employer did not attend the hearing at the OLRB.
The OLRB found that she was dismissed in retaliation for raising safety concerns. It awarded her lost wages. Interestingly, the OLRB also awarded her aggravated damages for mental distress, stating that such damages are appropriate where the employer violates a “statutory prohibition”.
The OLRB stated:
“Here the evidence is clear that the circumstances of the Complainant’s dismissal were insensitive, demeaning and humiliating. Mr. Vasiliades callously disregarded her workplace injury, failing to report it to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and pressured her to continue working despite her protestations of the seriousness of her injury. The Complainant was summarily dismissed while on sick leave solely for acting in accordance with the statutory mandate when she reported the hazardous working condition and her injury to the Ministry; she was threatened with arrest were she to set foot on the premises of Pro-Hairlines; she was denied her final paycheque; she was denied the opportunity to collect EI by the Employer’s bogus claim that she was self-employed and its refusal, in total disregard of federal legislation, to issue an ROE to which she was entitled. The Complainant was no longer self-sufficient as a direct result of the Employer’s conduct and suffered loss of self-esteem as she was forced to rely on her father for the basic necessities of food and shelter. Such economic dependence was humiliating for the Complainant. The psychological and mental distress she suffered was compounded by the lingering physical effects of the serious electrical shock she had sustained due to the hazardous conditions at the workplace for which the Employer was responsible. The Complainant’s sense of loss of dignity and self-respect can be laid directly at the feet of the Employer, acting through Mr. Vasiliades who throughout the dismissal process acted in a manner that was unfair and in bad faith, being both untruthful, misleading and unduly insensitive.”
The OLRB ordered the employer to pay the employee $16,659.00 as damages for lost wages, and $7,500.00 as aggravated damages, for a total of $24,159.00.
Brenda Bastien v 817775 Ontario Limited (Pro-Hairlines), 2014 CanLII 65582 (ON LRB).
