Rare Costs Award At BC Human Rights Tribunal For Improper Conduct

Despite an employer's legitimate basis for terminating an employee's employment, it will often find itself a respondent to a human rights complaint following termination. The costs for employers to defend a human rights complaint can be very high and, unlike in the courts, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to order unsuccessful parties to pay the successful party's legal fees. However, in exceptional circumstances, the Tribunal has a limited jurisdiction under the Human Rights Code to make punitive costs awards for "improper conduct" that impacts the integrity of the Tribunal's processes.

The Tribunal found such circumstances to exist in the case of Ma v. Dr. Iain G. M. Cleator and another. Kim Ma worked in the respondent doctor's clinic as an office assistant for a number of years. She eventually took an extended maternity leave and, when she returned to the workplace, found that a significant number of processes and operations had changed in