Court Quashes WSIAT Stress Decision And Allows Constructive Dismissal Case To Proceed

Historically, workers' compensation law placed a highly restrictive definition on traumatic mental stress injuries, which meant as a practical matter very few stress claims would ever be allowed. However, successful litigation advanced primarily by workers under the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms altered the legal landscape with respect to the treatment of stress claims by Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board ("WSIB"). Subsequent legislative and WSIB policy changes made it significantly easier for workers to get entitlement to WSIB benefits for mental stress injuries under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act ("WSIA").

However, this expansion of entitlement opened the backdoor for employers to argue that civil lawsuits relating to work related stress should be punted to the workers' compensation system. The "historic tradeoff" that underpins that system in every province, is that workers give up their right to sue for damages