In a decision issued on June 1, 2022, Martin v. Grapevine Optical and another (No. 2), 2022 BCHRT 76, Tribunal Member Devyn Cousineau held that employer Grapevine Optical in Oliver, British Columbia, discriminated against the complainant optician/store manager by terminating her employment one month after her husband quit. Before quitting, the Complainant Mrs. Martin’s husband Mr. Martin had an altercation with the owner of the store. After quitting, he filed a WorkSafeBC claim. Under the BC Human Rights Code, it is discrimination for an employer to refuse to continue to employ someone due to their marital status.
For the first 8 years that the complainant worked at Grapevine Optical, she had a good relationship with the store owner. She planned to work at the store in the long term and potentially buy and take over the business one day. She started working there in 2008. In 2016, her husband was hired to work at the store to relieve her of some of the burden of her workload. This worked okay until around June, 2019.
On or around June 10, 2019, the store owner and the complainant had a disagreement over a sign that was going to be changed at the store. It was a heated exchange. When the complainant went to leave the store with her husband at the end of the day, she said goodbye to the store owner. The store owner did not respond. Her husband made a remark to the store owner about not responding to his wife. The store owner followed the Martins out of the store and onto the street, where he confronted them. The store owner and Mr. Martin were yelling and angry at eachother. Angry words were exchanged. The Martins then left and went home. Mr. Martin filed a worksafeBC complaint for bullying and harassment.
Mrs. Martin attended work the next day and told the store owner that her husband would not be returning. The relationship between Mrs. Martin and the store owner became strained. On July 10, 2019, the store owner and Mrs. Martin had a conversation where the store owner told her he would be taking over all management duties that she previously did. There was disagreement between the parties about whether the complainant quit during the conversation because she asked to be let go, or was fired. The Tribunal found the following about this:
[42] Mr. Fellnermayr says he asked Mrs. Martin twice if she was quitting and she said yes – a
claim which she fervently denies. I accept Mrs. Martin’s evidence that she would not have quit
her job, which she was relying on to feed her family. At the same time, it is apparent that Mr.
Fellnermayr had not completely thought through the natural consequences of his actions. He
wanted to reassert control over his workplace by stripping Mrs. Martin of most of her essential
job duties. Whether he intended it or not, this amounted to the termination of her employment. When she accurately perceived what was happening, he made no efforts to reverse or correct what was happening. Instead, he blamed – and continues to blame – her.
According to the Tribunal, the Respondent was also estopped from arguing that Mrs. Martin quit her job because the Employment Standards Branch already had an oral hearing and determined that Mrs. Martin was fired from her job further to a complaint made under the Employment Standards Act.
Overall, the tribunal stated the following about the discriminatory nexus between Mrs. Martin’s termination and her marital status:
[59] I accept that Mr. Fellnermayr was increasingly unhappy with the dynamic in the workplace and that some of the above issues were factors in that unhappiness. However, I do not accept that these issues amount to a complete explanation for why he suddenly decided to remove all of Mrs. Martin’s managerial responsibilities and terminate her employment. They had worked together successfully for years, and he relied on her heavily. He never took any steps to correct the behaviour before the incident with Mr. Martin. In my view, the factor that pushed Mr. Fellnermayr to take this extreme step was that he perceived he could no longer trust Mrs. Martin because of what had happened with her husband and the subsequent decline in their relationship. This perception was not based on Mrs. Martin’s behaviour at work in the month after the incident, but arose because of her relationship with her husband. The “final
word” in Mr. Fellnermayr’s written submission reveals the event which marked the beginning of the end: “OMG!!! We were changing a sign. How did that get so wild and crazy?” The heated discussion about the sign led to Mr. Fellnermayr not saying goodbye to Mrs. Martin, which led to Mr. Martin making his sarcastic comment, which led to Mr. Fellnermayr following them out onto the street, which led to a shouting match and the end of Mr. Martin’s employment. Mrs. Martin kept coming to work, and doing her job as she had before. But in Mr. Fellnermayr’s mind, this altercation triggered the ultimate decline in a previously positive working relationship, and led to the end of Mrs. Martin’s employment.[60] Mr. Fellnermayr’s conduct after the termination supports that he viewed at least part of the problem to stem from the fact that he had hired spouses to work for him. This prompted him to implement a new policy prohibiting the hiring of spouses. This supports an inference that Mrs. Martin’s marriage to Mr. Martin was a factor in her termination.
The tribunal decided to award the Complainant wage loss. It declined to award lost wages to the date of the hearing, but award lost wages for the period between July 10, 2019 when the complainant was fired and December 31, 2020 when she started working part-time at a coffee shop, for a total of $50,836.53. The tribunal also awarded $20,000 for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.