Top court hears Honda wrongful dismissal case
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 | 5:53 PM ET
CBC News
Canada's top court has reserved decision in a high-profile wrongful dismissal suit involving record-setting compensation and the workplace accommodation of people with illnesses.
On Wednesday, Honda Canada asked the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn a lower court decision that awarded a fired employee $500,000 in punitive damages, which was later reduced to $100,000.
Kevin Keays was fired from a Honda assembly plant in Alliston, Ont., in March 2000. Three years earlier, he had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which led the 13-year employee to take time off work.
His employers at Honda recommended he apply for a program — run under the Ontario Human Rights Code — that would exempt him from being penalized for repeatedly missing work. Keays also saw a company doctor.
After more workplace absences and a breakdown in his relationship with his employer, Honda Canada cancelled Keays' enrolment in the provincial program and ordered him to see another company doctor.
Keays, acting on his lawyer's advice, refused unless Honda officials first told him more about the purpose of the visit with the doctor. Honda fired Keays for insubordination.
The Ontario Superior Court ruled Keays was fired without cause and awarded him 24 months of salary in lieu of formal notice, and $500,000 in punitive damages for violating his human rights. It was the largest award of punitive damages in a Canadian employment case.
"It would appear to me that Honda ran amok as a result of their blinded insistence on production 'efficiency' at the expense of their obligation to provide a longtime employee reasonable accommodation," wrote Justice John McIsaac, who called Honda a "leviathan" and Keays a "minnow."
"Just because Mr. Keays did not carry a white cane, use a hearing aid or get around in a wheelchair did not make him any less deserving of workplace recognition of his debilitating condition," McIsaac wrote. "Honda committed a litany of acts of discrimination and harassment."
Honda appealed the ruling to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which upheld the lower court decision, but reduced the punitive damages to $100,000.
Advocacy groups, corporate managers and insurance companies are watching the case closely.
Interveners include the human rights commissions of Canada, Ontario and Manitoba, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups, the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters Canada, and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.
The Supreme Court judges could also consider their ability to deal with wrongful dismissal cases as human rights violations within the courts, as opposed to within human rights tribunals.
