$50,000 General Damages for Sexual Harassment- By Affidavit Evidence

In Complainant v 1957753 Alberta Ltd. o/a 4 Seasons Transport, 2025 AHRC 63, a human rights complaint proceeded to hearing by affidavit evidence only, and the complainant was successful in establishing sexual harassment and a large general damages award.

This case is important for several reasons, including that it is rare that a decision would be decided by affidavit evidence only, and $50,000 is a high general damages award in Alberta human rights.

Facts

The following is a summary of the facts that appeared to be pertinent to the decision:

• Note: this hearing was done by affidavit evidence of the complainant. It appears to have been done this way because the only participation of the employer in the process was its initial response to the complaint, which denied the complaint and said it was a personal matter.  So, the evidence summarized here is the evidence of the complainant that was accepted by the Tribunal
• The complainant employee had her identity anonymized by an earlier decision
• The respondent employer 1957753 Alberta Ltd had one registered director and shareholder, who was referred to in the decision as H.E.
• The complainant worked on a casual basis providing administrative duties to the employer
• The complainant made a number of allegations of sexual harassment, including allegations of coerced oral sex (i.e. if you don’t, won’t get more work), sexual touching of breast and buttocks, and sexual innuendo and other comments. Most of the alleged behavior appears to have occurred more than 1 year prior to this decision (which is arguably out of time), but the Tribunal accepted that some of the allegations were corroborated and occurred within the 1 year period, including many sexual comments on a Facebook message log.  The Tribunal states that allegations of coerced oral sex on June 28 were corroborated by the complainant with Facebook communications – however, to be clear, from my reading of the decision it is not clear to me if this was accepted by the Tribunal to have occurred or not
• On July 3, 2021, the complainant resigned over Facebook, citing inappropriate conduct by HE
• The human rights complaint was for discrimination on the basis of disability and gender (sexual harassment).

Analysis / Conclusion

The Tribunal summarized the evidence above and had little difficulty concluding that “serious sexual harassment” had occurred, which had forced her to resign her employment.

In assessing damages, the Tribunal summarized the evidence the complainant had put forward of the suffering she experienced as a result of the discriminatory treatment she experienced.  The Tribunal did not appear to make specific findings on each item of evidence in this regard, but found in a general sense that the complainant had suffered significantly because of the respondent’s conduct. 

The complainant was awarded $50,000 in general damages for pain and suffering.

My Take

$50,000 is at the higher end of general damages awarded for pain and suffering in Alberta.  This award is not surprising based on the facts that were clearly found to have occurred.

However, some of the allegations are extremely serious.  It is not clear to me whether the Tribunal was accepting that all of the allegations of June 28 occurred, but if the Tribunal was finding they did occur, it seems unusual to me that the damages were not much higher than they were.   

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