The confidentiality clause she signed had real teeth, and ignoring it came with a five-figure bill
A worker who agreed not to criticize or discuss her settlement, then did both in court, has been ordered to repay part of what she was paid to sign it.
The June 24, 2026, award from Arbitrator Megan Ashbury involved the Fraser Health Authority and a former employee who belonged to the Health Sciences Association of British Columbia. Ashbury found the worker breached the confidentiality and non-disparagement terms of her January 2025 settlement and ordered her to repay $20,000 of the settlement funds by July 30, 2026, along with a declaration of breach and an order to stop.
The deal that closed a termination fight
The worker was terminated in 2023 after a progression of discipline. Her union filed grievances over the discipline and the termination, and the matter was referred to arbitration before Ashbury. The parties went to mediation in December 2024 and settled the following month.
In exchange for signing the settlement and a release, the worker received a sum of money, which the arbitrator did not disclose, a letter of reference, and the conversion of her termination into a resignation. She agreed to keep the settlement confidential and not to make disparaging comments about the employer.
The agreement did preserve one thing. It expressly allowed the worker to keep pursuing several WorkSafe BC compensation claims to their legal finality, and said nothing in the deal waived those statutory rights. That carve-out became the centre of the dispute.
When a separate fight spilled over
After signing, the worker began a judicial review tied to her ongoing WorkSafe BC claims, a proceeding in which the health authority was also a party. Over several months in 2025 she filed affidavits and applications and appeared in court, at times without a lawyer.
The employer argued those filings went well beyond the WorkSafe claims. According to the award, the worker's affidavits and statements accused the employer of negligence, of failing to accommodate her, and of harassment, and described her exit as a wrongful dismissal. Her counsel, at an October adjournment application, characterized the settlement as a low quantum for her length of employment.
The employer said the statements breached two things at once. They disclosed the existence and some terms of a settlement she had promised to keep confidential, and they disparaged the employer in violation of the release. None of it, the employer maintained, was necessary to advance her WorkSafe claims. It asked for a declaration of breach and repayment of everything she had received, later adding requests for a cease-and-desist order and further penalties.
Why the arbitrator ordered repayment
The union defended the worker on the ground of absolute privilege, the principle that statements made in a court proceeding cannot form the basis of a separate claim. It argued the settlement itself let her pursue the WorkSafe review, and that an arbitrator should not police how a self-represented litigant runs her case.
Ashbury weighed that against the public interest in upholding settlements, and came down on the side of the settlement. She was not persuaded the statements were needed to advance the WorkSafe claims, found the worker had disclosed confidential terms of the deal, and found she had made "persistent, negative and critical statements which clearly disparage the Employer."
The arbitrator found the breaches were premeditated and deliberate, and that they continued even after the worker was put on notice of the employer's application. A bare declaration, she concluded, would not deter further breaches. "A settlement agreement is a promise," she wrote, ordering repayment of $20,000, half for the statements through the fall of 2025 and half for continuing to breach the agreement at a November hearing, together with an order to stop.
See Fraser Health Authority v Health Sciences Association of British Columbia, 2026 CanLII 74430 (BC LA)
