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ARTICLE · 24 MAY 2017

Is It Work-Related? Novel Workers' Compensation Decisions Deal With Harassment And Assault

Stringer LLP
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It may seem fairly obvious when a worker breaks her leg "in the course of employment". However, injuries and illnesses related to bullying and harassment have drawn significant attention in recent years...

CanadaEmployment and HR
Stringer LLP
Stringer LLP
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It may seem fairly obvious when a worker breaks her leg "in the course of employment". However, injuries and illnesses related to bullying and harassment have drawn significant attention in recent years, and decisions from various workers' compensation tribunals across the country illustrate that determining the work-relatedness of such injuries is no simple task.

The Decision

In the anonymized decision 2014-363-AD (Re), the Nova Scotia Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal found that although a worker was sexually assaulted by her boss, the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") that resulted was not compensable as it was not a work-related injury.

In that case, the worker received a call from her new supervisor while at home on her day off, telling her that he was coming over. She did not know him well, and had never interacted with him outside of work. She thought that she must have been in trouble at work. The worker testified that when he arrived, he

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