A knee injury, a reorg, and a tribunal ruling HR can't ignore
An employee's knee injury didn't disappear when his job did. British Columbia's human rights tribunal found that a national electronics retailer discriminated against him when it fired him during a companywide restructuring, while his accommodation claim was still active.
In a decision issued August 5, 2026, Tribunal Member Amber Prince of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal found that Best Buy Canada discriminated against a former assistant store leader when it eliminated his position and terminated his employment during the company's annual reorganization process. The tribunal ordered Best Buy to pay the worker more than $60,000 in lost wages, expenses and damages for injury to his dignity, on top of interest.
Knee pain intensifies as the worker seeks modified duties
The worker joined Best Buy in 2018 and was promoted twice over roughly two and a half years, moving from a sales associate role to team lead and eventually to assistant store leader in November 2020. Around the same time, he began experiencing knee pain that a doctor initially linked to varicose veins. By March 2021, the pain had worsened to the point that he struggled to stand or walk for more than 15 minutes at a stretch.
Doctors recommended sedentary duties, and the worker asked his store leader and Best Buy's human resources team to consider a transfer to a role that involved less time on his feet. He also applied for other positions within the company and pursued a claim for short-term disability benefits, though he viewed the leave as a last resort because it would have reduced his pay to about 55 to 60 per cent of his salary.
By April 20, 2021, a third-party disability case manager had confirmed to Best Buy that the worker's accommodation claim was medically supported and approved. Eight days later, he was told his position had been eliminated.
Restructuring eliminates his position while a colleague is promoted
Best Buy runs an annual reorganization process, called re-banding, that adjusts store staffing levels based on projected revenue. Under the 2021 re-banding, the worker's store was reclassified, and his assistant store leader position was eliminated and replaced with a newly created team lead role.
Best Buy promoted a more junior employee into that new position, citing his performance and aptitude. Other employees affected by the same reorganization were offered transfers to comparable roles at other stores, and at least one employee was demoted at his own request. No one raised either option with the worker before he was let go.
Best Buy maintained that the termination resulted solely from the restructuring and that it had no obligation to keep the worker employed once his role no longer existed. It also argued that demotions were not part of its usual practice during re-banding.
Tribunal finds employer failed to explore alternatives before firing him
Tribunal Member Prince found that the timing of the termination, arriving while the worker's accommodation claim was active and his employer knew of his disability, supported an inference that the disability was a factor in the decision. She found that Best Buy had not rebutted that inference, noting the company never discussed a transfer, demotion or other position with the worker despite knowing he wanted to keep working.
The tribunal accepted that avoiding demotions during re-banding served a legitimate business purpose, but found Best Buy had not shown that keeping the worker employed would have caused undue hardship. It noted Best Buy had demoted another employee during the same reorganization and had supplied no financial evidence to support a hardship claim. As Prince wrote, "Best Buy has not proven that it met that duty."
The tribunal ordered Best Buy to pay $38,746.65 in lost wages, $1,589 in expenses, and $20,000 for injury to the worker's dignity, feelings and self-respect, along with pre- and post-judgment interest. The worker had testified that after the termination, "I felt disposable and devalued."
