Company Not Liable for Worker’s Sex Harassment of Non-Employee

An on-site medical worker sued an oil drilling company after being sexually harassed by one of its workers at an offshore rig. There was ample evidence of harassment. But the medic’s problem was the law not the facts. Specifically, she worked for the medical firm, not the oil driller. And absent an employment relationship, she couldn’t bring a sexual harassment discrimination claim against the driller. There are pigs like the worker everywhere, the Tribunal acknowledged But there’s a difference between being harassed in day-to-day life and being harassed in an employment setting; unfortunately, the human rights laws deal only with the latter, the Tribunal lamented [Binks v Trinidad Drilling Ltd., 2017 AHRC 17 (CanLII), Aug. 25, 2017].