Modified Duties Weren’t Harassment But Discussing Injury in Public Was

After a car plant worker injured her arm, she was assigned to sort parts as a modified duty. She claimed that this assignment was disability discrimination and harassment as it was intended to humiliate her. She also argued that a supervisor harassed her by discussing her disability and requesting medical information about it in front of others. The Human Rights Tribunal found that sorting parts wasn’t ‘garbage work’ but an integral part of the operations and so didn’t constitute harassment. However, although the supervisor was justified in asking the worker for documentation that she missed work to get an MRI, he shouldn’t have asked for such information or discussed her injury in front of other workers. So it ordered the employer to pay her $1,500 in damages [McNeil v. Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc., [2013] HRTO 2111 (CanLII), Dec. 20, 2013].