Alberta Human Rights Tribunal orders historic damage awards for three victims of sexual harassment
In Oliva, Pascoe, and Strong v Gursoy, 2024 AHRC 45, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal (AHRT) issued its highest ever damages award to three women who had experienced sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination at work. Alanalia Oliva (Oliva), Lindsey Pascoe (Pascoe), and Jenessa Strong (Strong) all worked for TJ Construction Management Ltd. (TJCM). They alleged the CEO of TJCM, John Gursoy (Gursoy), repeatedly made sexualized comments to them, sexually solicited them and inappropriately touched them throughout their employment at TJCM. All three women resigned from their positions with TJCM due to Gursoy’s behaviour.
Additionally, both Oliva and Pascoe alleged that Gursoy had retaliated against them by suing them in court for filing human rights complaints against him. Oliva also claimed that Gursoy had discriminated against her, based on disability by aggressively questioning her about her medical condition and demanding she either disclose her private medical information to him or leave the office.
The AHRT decision:
The AHRT upheld all of the allegations made against Gursoy and awarded the following to the three women:
- To Oliva: $75,000 for gender-based discrimination and discrimination based on disability and $50,000 for retaliation
- To Pascoe: $30,000 for gender-based discrimination and $25,000 for retaliation
- To Strong: $50,000 for gender-based discrimination
The Importance of these awards:
These awards are among the highest ever made by the AHRT. The award provided to Oliva is now the highest ever for a human rights claim in Alberta. The awards made in this decision continue a recent upward trend by the AHRT in damage awards over the past few years, particularly in cases involving sexual harassment.