A lost phone, a missing key and a firing all became evidence in her case
A Canadian nonprofit has managed to fend off a former employee's claims that everyday workplace decisions, from a work phone to a shift schedule, amounted to disability discrimination and retaliation for raising a human rights complaint. A tribunal sided entirely with the employer, dismissing every allegation.
In a decision dated July 31, 2026, tribunal member Andrew Robb of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal dismissed a complaint by a former outreach and live-in support worker against the John Howard Society of Okanagan & Kootenay, a regional social services nonprofit.
The worker, employed there under a year in 2020, argued that a removed phone and laptop, a denied office key, a mandatory medical form, discipline for lateness, and her termination all connected to disabilities including ADHD and a brain injury. Robb found none of it amounted to discrimination, and rejected her retaliation claim over her termination.
Discrimination claim
The worker said she was singled out over ordinary equipment. A manager, she said, denied her an office key because people with ADHD could be forgetful, and losing a laptop and phone made her job harder in ways tied to her disabilities.
The phone and laptop, Robb found, were issued for practical reasons unrelated to disability. Her first posting had no company office nearby, so she needed the devices to log case notes and stay reachable. When her role changed, the organization asked for them back, as it would for any employee. There was no evidence, he wrote, that this stopped her from doing her job or reaching coworkers, still accessible by her personal phone.
On the office key, Robb preferred the manager's account, finding no ADHD comment was made. Other live-in staff at her posting did not get a key either, unless they also worked regional-office shifts. A key sat in an on-site safe for her use, and nothing suggested the manager limited her access because of disability.
A medical form and a lateness warning
The worker also challenged a physician's reference form, arguing she was singled out and it probed too deeply into her psychological history. Robb disagreed. Emails showed the same form went to several live-in staff at once, and she confirmed receiving the request alongside colleagues. He accepted it as standard for a role involving unsupervised, round-the-clock work with vulnerable clients.
A written warning for lateness followed a similar pattern. The worker argued her disabilities contributed to her lateness and that she was disciplined more harshly than late colleagues. No medical evidence linked the two, Robb concluded, and a coworker's complaint, not any stereotype, prompted the warning.
Robb separated diagnosis from conduct throughout his reasons. Having a disability that can affect focus does not mean every workplace slip connects to it, he wrote, citing rulings that presume employees with disabilities can perform their jobs professionally. A manager's email about the worker, sent months before the firing, said only that "common sense can't be taught" — language Robb tied to judgment concerns with clients rather than her disabilities.
Firing followed a rights complaint
Timing sat at the center of the retaliation claim. The worker told human resources staff, and later the executive director, that she intended to contact the Human Rights Tribunal. Her termination followed within weeks, and she argued the sequence spoke for itself.
A separate ruling entered the analysis. Under the Workers Compensation Act, the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal had found the firing was tainted by an earlier internal complaint accusing a manager of bullying. That finding did not help her human rights case, Robb concluded, since the organization was already weighing her termination before it had reason to think she might approach the tribunal.
Robb accepted the executive director's testimony that performance concerns, unresolved medical documentation, and eroded trust drove the decision, not a human rights complaint. The termination letter told her "the foundation of trust has eroded." With no link established between her disabilities and the treatment she described or her firing, Robb dismissed the complaint in full.
See Redmond v. John Howard Society of Okanagan & Kootenay (No.3), 2026 BCHRT 172
