A worker's late medical information raised a tricky question about when accommodation is owed
A worker who asked to do her job from home and requested accommodation has been turned down by British Columbia's highest court which confirmed the employer’s refusal was not discrimination.
The Court of Appeal for British Columbia dismissed the worker's appeal on July 10, 2026, in reasons written by Justice Griffin.
The employee had spent years fighting a British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) ruling that threw out her disability complaint against TELUS Employer Solutions before it reached a hearing.
A request to work from home, and a request for proof
The worker had been employed on a series of temporary fixed-term contracts as a client service advisor since November 2016, working out of an office building in Saanichton, B.C. In mid-January 2018, she began experiencing symptoms she believed were triggered by something in the building, among them fatigue, poor sleep, low mood and brain fog. She started asking to work from home.
Her supervisor told her that employees had no automatic right to work from home and asked for a doctor's note. A note from her physician, dated Jan. 23, 2018, said only that "a trial of work from home is recommended" for health reasons. The employer considered it vague and asked the doctor to complete a formal assessment form.
The completed form described "unexplained, vague, general symptoms" but recorded "no diagnosis" and "no obvious functional limitation or medical restriction at this time." The employer also pointed to a policy tying work-from-home arrangements to certain performance standards, which the supervisor felt she was not meeting. Her request was refused, and she stopped attending the office after Feb. 5, 2018.
A diagnosis that arrived after the job ended
The employer placed the worker on an unpaid leave of absence on Feb. 9, 2018, pending review of the medical form. In March she filed a formal workplace accommodation request to work from home or another location, and it too was denied. Her contract expired on its own terms on May 31, 2018, with the company confirming the "end of assignment effective today" and offering no further term.
Months later the worker began seeing a specialist in internal medicine, and in 2019 she applied for a provincial person-with-disabilities designation. That application relied on a report diagnosing her with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, a condition described as affecting her attention, memory and daily activities.
She had already filed a human rights complaint in July 2018, alleging both physical and mental disability discrimination. The Tribunal dismissed it, a judicial review sent parts of it back for reconsideration, and the Tribunal dismissed it a second time. A chambers judge upheld that decision, and the worker took her case to the Court of Appeal.
Why timing decided the outcome
Justice Griffin set out the principle the appeal turned on: an employer's duty to accommodate is assessed on the information it had at the time, not on evidence that emerges later. The Tribunal had been willing to accept the worker might have had a disability, but found the medical information the employer held in early 2018 did not point to any limitation that required her to work from home.
In summarizing the case, Justice Griffin wrote: "The workplace policy was a true requirement of the job and adopted in good faith. In the meantime, when the medical evidence was not forthcoming, the employer kept the position open while the employee stayed home."
The later diagnosis did not alter the result. The worker had since obtained evidence of a genuine condition, but as Justice Griffin wrote, "this does not mean that the employer discriminated against her when it did not have this evidence in hand." The appeal was dismissed, and the employer was awarded its costs.
See McNeil v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2026 BCCA 296
