Asbestos Firm Claims WCB Committed Nationality Discrimination

The WCB took a series of enforcement actions to force a Seattle-based asbestos abatement firm to comply with OHS asbestos rules. Years of litigation later, the battle got personal when the firm claimed the Board deliberately targeted it due to the ethnicity of its principals and sued for money damages. The trial judge not only struck the claims as ‘scandalous’ but refused to even allow the firm’s Seattle-based lawyer from the U.S. address his court since he wasn’t licensed to practice law in BC. The BC high court upheld the judge on both sets of decisions and chucked the appeal [Singh v. Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia, 2018 BCCA 49 (CanLII), Feb. 1, 2018].