The complaint failed, the worker wasn't believed, so why did this employer still pay
An arbitrator found that a worker had not been harassed by a colleague, yet ordered her employer, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), to pay her damages for the way it handled her complaints.
In a decision dated May 4, 2026, Grievance Settlement Board arbitrator Diane Gee found that LCBO customer service representative Maria Bauer had not been harassed, rejecting much of Bauer's own account as not credible. Gee nonetheless ordered the employer to pay $4,500 in general damages: it had not investigated one of her three complaints at all, and had never given her the results of the other two in writing.
Two co-workers who couldn’t get along
Bauer, a customer service representative and Beer Ambassador at a Markham store, worked alongside another representative who served as the store's product consultant. The two had a mutual dislike that other staff noticed, and between October 2018 and September 2019 Bauer filed complaints alleging that the co-worker bullied and harassed her and that the LCBO failed to investigate properly.
The complaints stemmed from a handful of episodes. Two were heated exchanges, in October 2018 and June 2019, in which voices were raised and, on the later occasion, the co-worker called Bauer a derogatory name. A January 2019 episode saw the co-worker report that Bauer had taken home beer a sales representative brought into the store, and an August 2019 dispute centred on a wooden product box and signage posted in the back room.
Bauer asked that either she or the co-worker be moved, and she was eventually transferred permanently to another store. She argued the transfer punished her for raising complaints.
When a conflict is not harassment
Gee found that none of the incidents, on their own or combined, amounted to harassment. She distinguished harassment, which she described as generally one-sided, repeated and aimed at undermining or intimidating a target, from a personality conflict, which is mutual and rooted in workplace disagreements.
On the evidence, Gee found Bauer was not a credible witness and that the exchanges with the co-worker were mutual blow-ups rather than a one-sided campaign against her. She also found the permanent transfer was made for operational reasons within management's rights under the collective agreement, not as punishment for complaining.
In rejecting the harassment claim, Gee wrote that "Not every bad thing that happens at work is harassment."
Why the employer still paid
Despite prevailing on the harassment question, the LCBO was found to have breached section 32.0.7 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the collective agreement. Gee held that the duty to investigate a harassment complaint and report the result in writing is triggered by the filing of a complaint that alleges harassment, not by any finding that harassment occurred.
Gee found the employer had told Bauer verbally that the October 2018 and June 2019 investigations were closed, and had told her it would not investigate her September 2019 complaint at all. Verbal notice, she ruled, fell short of the statutory requirement to inform the worker in writing of the results of an investigation and any corrective action taken or to be taken.
Gee noted that the statute's requirements override an employer's own policies, writing that "Policies do not negate the Employer's statutory obligations." She ordered the LCBO to pay Bauer $4,500 in general damages and remained seized to deal with any issues arising from the award.
See Ontario Public Service Employees Union (Bauer) v Ontario (Liquor Control Board), 2026 CanLII 55617
