The damages decision in Volpi v Lifemark Health Corp, 2026 AHRC 71 (Christianson) is the highest discrimination damages award in Alberta human rights history, as far as I am aware.
The damages decision is dated June 17, 2026, several months after the liability decision (2026 AHRC 26), where it was first determined that discrimination had occurred. BRL human rights lawyer Shane Varjassy summarized the liability decision 2 months ago.
In the damages decision I summarize here, Alberta Human Rights Tribunal (“AHRT”) awarded lost wages totaling $965,338.14 plus general damages for injury to dignity of $40,000, for a total damages award exceeding $1,000,000 plus interest.
The damages decision is important because it illustrates that human rights damages for lost wages can span several years. It is still very rare for this to happen, but it appears it remains technically possible in the right circumstances.
I was provided the written decision for this summary by Arman Chak, counsel for the complainant, before it was published online. I edited this post just to add the link to the case after it was published online, later the same morning.
Facts
The following were the pertinent facts summarized by the AHRT:
- In the liability decision, the employer Lifemark Health Corp was found to have discriminated against the complainant employee Mr. Volpi by “delaying his ability to take time off in the summer of 2016 and by accepting his resignation without inquiring into whether his leave request and resignation were related to his mental disability and without any real consideration of whether it could accommodate [him]”
- The employee was very successful in his job for many years. He was a very high performer and was highly valued by the employer
- The employee made very high income as a physiotherapist largely because he operated two schedules at the same time, enabling him to see twice as many patients. However, the billing practices that enabled this income were being forcibly changed in the industry around this time as a result of pressure from insurance companies
- The employee suffered from a Bipolar II Disorder, a mental disability
- The employee resigned his employment during a hypomanic state (a symptom of his disability). In the circumstances, the resignation was treated as a discriminatory termination of employment
- The employee had no income for 9 months after Lifemark. At that point he secured a job elsewhere, but earned significantly less money there
- The employee argued he was entitled to general damages of $60,000 plus pecuniary damages (wage loss) of $4,575,200
- The employer argued the complainant was entitled to $25,000-$30,000 in general damages plus pecuniary damages of $267,397.26
Analysis / Conclusion
The AHRT Tribunal awarded $40,000 in general damages for injury to dignity, emphasizing that “the respondent’s repeated failures in meeting its duty to inquire resulted in serious repercussions for the complainant’s mental wellbeing and the loss of his long-term treasured employment and the clear sense of self-worth that he derived from his job.”
The Tribunal then considered pecuniary damages (wage loss) and explained its process as follows:
[18] With respect to pecuniary damages for wage loss under section 32(1)(b)(iv) of the Act, the Court of Appeal in Walsh held that the “assessment of damages under that provision must accord with the root principle that the injured party should be put back into the position she would have enjoyed had the wrong not occurred, to the extent that money is capable of accomplishing that goal.”
[19] Damages for lost income under the Act are not limited to what would be payable in a civil action for wrongful dismissal. Rather, the Tribunal is to apply a causation analysis, borrowed from tort law, but modified for the human rights context. This means asking what the complainant’s income would have been “but for” the discriminatory act(s), and reducing that where appropriate and on a principled basis. The complainant has an obligation to reasonably mitigate losses, but whether mitigation is reasonable must be assessed in the particular context of the discrimination that has occurred and the impact that has had on the complainant. The complainant must prove their damages and the award made must be based on the facts before the Tribunal in the specific case.
The parties agreed the complainant should receive damages for the 9 month period of his unemployment after his discriminatory termination, which was $267,397.26.
However, they disagreed if anything was owing for the period after that. The complainant employee argued he should also be entitled to damages for the difference between the income he earned at his new job as compared to his income at the respondent employer, from the time he got that job until age 69 – which is 24 years from dismissal.
The employer argued the employee should not be entitled to any pecuniary (wage loss) damages after securing his new employment, because the employee had no evidence that a medical restriction prevented him from working to the same level he had at the respondent employer.
The Tribunal rejected the employer’s argument on this point as follows:
[29] In this case, the Tribunal has already concluded that but for the respondent’s discriminatory actions, the complainant would have continued to work for the respondent past October 2016. Specifically, the complainant’s wage loss claim in this matter arises from the loss of employment, which was caused by the discriminatory acceptance of the complainant’s resignation. Therefore, the wage loss “but for” analysis in this case is properly focused on the loss of employment: i.e., but for the loss of the complainant’s employment, what would his income have been?
[30] […] An employer cannot end an employee’s employment in breach of the Act and then be absolved from paying the employee any lost wages because the employee did not also prove, in addition to proving the discriminatory loss of their employment, that the respondent’s conduct permanently disabled them from working to a certain level.
[…]
[32] As a result, the question remains: but for the respondent’s discrimination already found, what would the complainant’s income from the respondent have been and what reductions are appropriate in light of the evidence before the Tribunal.
[33] In order to assess this question, the Tribunal must consider what the complainant’s income was prior to the discrimination, what it has been since that, and what it otherwise would have been accounting for mitigation and any relevant contingencies (for example, how long would the complainant have worked for the respondent but for the discrimination, how much would he have earned in doing that, etc.).
The Tribunal essentially accepted the substantial wages loss calculations of the complainant’s expert, but adjusted the earnings and time period downwards as follows:
- If the complainant had remained working for Lifemark, he would not likely have earned the same income he did prior to discrimination, because industry billing practices were undergoing forced change at the time that would have caused his income to decrease. A reduction of 25% was made to the assumed annual earnings on this basis
- The complainant was unlikely to have remained with Lifemark for the remainder of his career, because he was unhappy with several developments at work that were unrelated to discrimination. However, it was accepted that he had planned to work there for the rest of his career and that he could handle the work with accommodations. A reduction in the wage-loss period was made from the 24 years he was seeking, down to the assessed reasonable period of 10 years, concluding in 2025.
The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal awarded the employee pecuniary damages for lost wages of $965,338.14. Together with his general damages for injury to dignity of $40,000, his overall damages exceeded one million dollars.
My Take
Volpi is obviously a very substantial win for employees. It is an astounding award, without a doubt.
It has long been established law in Alberta that it has been possible to secure a pecuniary wage-loss award that spans many years. However, in practice this virtually never happens.
The highest ones I can think of in Alberta prior to Volpi are Cowling v Her Majesty the Queen, 2012 AHRC 12, and Walsh v Mobil Oil Canada, 2013 ABCA 238, both of which were 5 years. But awards like that were extremely rare at the time (13 years ago) and they still are. I think most practitioners have treated decisions like Cowling and Walsh as almost theoretical in light of the more recent tendencies towards much more conservative and less speculative wage loss awards.
It is technically possible to get long wage loss awards because the Alberta Human Rights Act and the Walsh case empower the AHRC to put the complainant in the position they would have been in but-for the discrimination.
However, there are very few cases where the wage losses awards have extended beyond a few years. Some of the reasons include:
- The complainant has a duty to mitigate their damages, and damages are reduced by new employment. Some of the cases also cut the damages off upon new employment
- The Tribunal has wide discretion to determine when the complainant would likely have secured a job, when they likely would have left the employer, retired, etc.
- The Tribunal has usually treated really long wage loss periods as too speculative to award
I also personally think the methodology employed by the Tribunal in calculating pecuniary damages has not been entirely consistent. For instance, there are a number of cases that seem to tie the human rights damages to what is available in civil actions for wrongful dismissal, which would virtually never exceed 2 years. Also, the Walsh case is sometimes construed more narrowly than it was in this Volpi decision.
For practitioners, I would point out some distinguishing features of Volpi. In Volpi, it was accepted that the employee was a rockstar performer in fact and in the eyes of his employer with very high compensation. It was also accepted as a fact that he had planned to work there for the rest of his career and that he would have been able to work there long-term with accommodations. It seems very unlikely to me the award would have covered such a long period if any of these factors had not been clearly established, because: (1) there is no legal presumption of holding a job till retirement, and there is almost never a contractual right to that either, and (2) how can one realistically even guess how long an employee would have remained somewhere unless there is some evidence to support that guess? There did seem to be supporting evidence for that speculation in Volpi, but I don’t think there is in most cases.
On the other hand, based on the rule in Walsh and the reasoning in Volpi, in the perfect circumstances an award exceeding 10 years would be possible.
We’ll all have to wait patiently to find out if the complainant or employer will seek judicial review at Court of King’s Bench.
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