He insisted he was ready for work but his employer wasn't convinced
For more than two years, an injured mechanic insisted he was ready to return to work. British Columbia's human rights tribunal has just decided his former employer had already done enough.
In a decision released July 29, 2026, Tribunal member Beverly Froese of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the mechanic's complaint against Williams Machinery Limited Partnership, a Kelowna equipment dealer. Froese found the company had accommodated his disability to the point of undue hardship before ending his employment more than two years after a workplace injury sidelined him.
A workplace injury turns into a two-year absence
The worker, a service technician at the company's Kelowna shop, injured his groin in April 2017 while repairing a machine; the pain quickly spread to his lower back and down his leg. WorkSafe paid him wage-loss benefits, then cut them off five months later, concluding the injury had resolved.
By April 2018, the operations manager warned him he risked being treated as absent without leave. He testified he felt "threatened," since he believed he had kept the shop informed. Months later, a WorkSafe review officer reversed course, finding his back condition had in fact been aggravated at work.
By November 2018, WorkSafe accepted his claim for permanent chronic back pain and set lasting limits: medium lifting only, up to 20 kilograms, a change of position after about an hour on his feet, and no twisting combined with bending. His physiotherapist reported around this time that it was "unlikely that he is going to be able to return to pulling wrenches."
Pinpointing when the duty to accommodate began
The worker said that between August 2018 and January 2019, he repeatedly told the company in person that he wanted to come back in some capacity, including the service manager, the operations manager, and the HR manager at a chance meeting. Froese accepted that these exchanges took place.
Still, Froese ruled it was reasonable for Williams Machinery not to act. The conversations were brief and unscheduled, he never followed up in writing, and every doctor's note he provided said he should stay off work, not that he was cleared to return. She also found he raised the subject partly because he had gone unpaid for nearly a year and was "desperate" for money.
Froese fixed the trigger date instead at January 2019, when the operations manager met a WorkSafe vocational rehabilitation consultant to review the physical demands of his old job and possible alternatives at the Kelowna shop. That meeting, she found, marked the point Williams Machinery's duty to accommodate genuinely began.
Every open job required lifting he could no longer do
The Kelowna shop had 10 other positions at the time, from parts helper to sales representative, and all were filled. Froese found his own service technician job alone ruled him out, since it regularly meant lifting parts weighing well over 100 pounds and twisting into awkward positions, far beyond his medium-lifting limit.
The parts and warehouse jobs required lifting up to 75 pounds and constant twisting, tasks Froese found could not be safely modified. The service writer and sales representative roles carried similar physical demands, including long stretches of sitting and climbing in and out of machinery, which Froese found ruled them out regardless of his qualifications for either role.
According to the company, it mailed a termination letter in April 2019 that was returned unclaimed, and the worker did not learn his job was over until four months later, when a new operations manager called him in to retrieve his toolbox. He alleged that Williams Machinery simply wanted to "get rid of" him to protect its WorkSafe rates, but Froese rejected that theory and dismissed his complaint.
See Sargent v. Williams Machinery Limited Partnership (No.2), 2026 BCHRT 168
