Tag: #Compensation

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The Damage Period

Anytime someone is being sued or has a human rights complaint against them, they are always looking to minimize the damage period. They don’t want to pay for your harm for 2 years, when they can only be legally responsible for 6 months.

Common sense, reality and law don’t always match up. These are legal tests. Law tries to put a box and categorize a human experience.

Depending on the legal issue, there are different ways to minimize the damage period.

I took a defamation workshop (notes here), and I found it to be very interesting. I learned about how, if/when, and how you apologize can impact how much you could potentially be on the hook for paying them. For example, let’s say you go on social media and say some horrible shit about someone. You accuse them of being involved in criminal activity, etc. blah blah blah. A week later, you apologize genuinely, take it all back, and try to repair their reputation. You explain you were angry, you made it all up, etc. The apology acts as a time stamp. It legally stops the clock. Your damage period may only be 7 days. But if you apologize after 2 months and the damage has already been done….they have lost business because of what you have said about them. Well, now your costs are going to be much higher.

This is an important concept in human rights complaints for schools, because I have noticed they are always trying to limit their damage period.

This can be good for us.

If they know you have a human rights complaint submitted, they are going to want to “fix it”. Not because they are emotionally motivated, but more financially motivated to do it. They know they are now going to have to justify their actions and provide evidence of accommodation, potentially, to a tribunal. They are going to want to shrink their damage period by providing your child with accommodations. The more concerned they are about you taking your case to a hearing, the more of a commitment to undoing the harm you are going to get.

This is one of the reasons telling them you have filed a human rights complaint before you find out if it’s been accepted or not can be a form of advocacy for your child.

Some people may disagree with me, but in my experience, a human rights complaint offered my child a level of protection. They got the support they needed, and they were protected by retaliation protections in The Code. Depends on what you are dealing with; fast tracking may make the most sense. Sometimes, having a human rights complaint hang over the district, lasting for years, may be the exact thing that you need to keep your kid safe.

If you don’t notice any changes within the next few months after letting the district know you have filed a complaint, they may genuinely feel that they are accommodating your child up to the point of undue hardship and their decisions are justifiable. Doesn’t mean that they are correct.

Lawyers and districts are always thinking of how to reduce their costs, and they will assess how “cost-risky” you are. They have a lot of parents threatening all sorts of things at them. Reality is, not many parents follow through. So if you are a parent who actually files external complaints, you are now sticking out from the crowd.

My suggestion to anyone is to be thoughtful when filing complaints. Don’t rush into it. Be aware of time limits. With the BC HRT and filing a human rights complaint, you have a year. These can be part of your toolbox. For example, if you are considering filing a Teacher’s Regulation Branch, the Ministry wants you to speak with the superintendent first. That can be useful. You may not even need to file the complaint. Start by using human rights language in your advocacy emails and escalate as needed.

I had no idea how much strategizing was involved in advocacy when I first started out. I have learned A LOT.

Your pen can be your sword.

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Compensation Amount

Getting compensation for your child who was harmed, is one of the reasons parents file complaints. Certainly not the only reason. There are lots of ways that your child can benefit beyond compensation. However, for this blog let us focus on the monetary benefits.

Historically, education cases have always been low in terms of what the tribunal has awarded. I have seen some cases that were quite surprising to me how much an adult got for not being able to bring a stroller into a store or having an appointment cancelled. Here we are talking about children and the impacts on them that could last a lifetime, and children don’t seem to be compensated enough. It seems a little off to me. This is an area that I think needs attention, but in this case, Student (by Parent) v. School District, 2023 BCHRT 237, there is some hope.

It was $5,000 for serious harm from the dates April 24 and June 27, 2019.

$5,000 for 64 days. AND this was only for one class out of 8 classes that took place every other day. Previously before this it was $4,000 and $10,000 that spanned years.

Previous cases, older cases, were Moore and Jubran. These were the only other public education cases for which complainants were awarded amounts that I am aware of in BC.

BC Human Rights Clinic has an awards chart that shows how much compensation has been given. This document was updated on April 3rd, 2025

The Moore case: Compensation for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect was for $10,000 for a time period that was years.

Jubran v. Board of Trustees, 2002 BCHRT 10: Compensation for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect was $4,000. This was for years of bullying and harassment.

These cases are older. The tribunals’ compensation amounts have been increasing, which they have acknowledged.

When it comes to an amount, it is important to note:

Spielberger v. Sofo Kitchens Ltd., 2025 BCHRT 1

160]      I start by noting that the Tribunal is not bound by its past decisions regarding how much compensation it orders for injury to dignity. However, I will keep Gardner in mind. I will also keep in mind that Gardner is ten years old, and that the value of the award in it must be viewed considering inflation.

[161]      In deciding an appropriate amount of compensation, I am guided by the factors considered in Gichuru v. The Law Society of British Columbia (No. 9) 2011 BCHRT 185, which include the time and nature of the discrimination, the period and frequency of the discrimination, any vulnerability of the complainant, the impact of the discrimination upon the complainant, and the totality of the relationship between the complainant and respondent: at para. 260; upheld in 2014 BCCA 396.

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Settlement will go into a Trust Account

It is also important to note that the money you get for your child will need to go into a trust account. This trust account will be managed until they are 19 years old by a government trust organization. If you get money from a hearing, it too will need to go into a trust account that you will need to manage until they are 19 years old. You can take money out before they are 19 years old; it just needs to be logged and recorded what was spent on the child.

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More than just Compensation

When you go into a mediation meeting, you can ask for certain things that you would never get out of a decision from the tribunal.

What does your kid need? What supports do you want for them at school?

Do you want policy? Do you want the schools to change an administrative procedure? What other kind of systemic changes do you think are important?

There are things beyond just compensation that may be very helpful for your child and your community.

Mediation Meetings

Mediation meetings are a cost-risk analysis. They are trying to determine how expensive they think you are going to be and what the chances are of you succeeding.

Be prepared. Write it out in terms of what you feel is fair based on the criteria above. It sounds horrible, but you are going to need to articulate the level of harm. You may find this uncomfortable or maybe liberating, but if you hold back, you may be compensated less because of it. As usual, the more evidence you have to support this, the better of a position you will be in. Schools assess everything in terms of risk management and liability.

Settlements are typically higher than what you will get at a hearing. The closer you get to a hearing than if you settle early on, the amount tends to increase as well. It just means that you need to be prepared and do the work for a hearing, just in case. You can also hire a lawyer to assist you in just the mediation part.

There are a lot of reasons people file human rights complaints.

  • People want change – advocacy reasons
  • They want their harm acknowledged
  • They want certain things to happen that they can get from a settlement
  • They want to ensure the schools are providing reasonable accommodations, and filing a human rights complaint forces schools to consider the damage period.
  • They want the discrimination to stop, and for schools not to do this to anyone else or at least think twice before they do.
  • They are pissed off and need to do something, anything, but have what their child experienced just swept under the rug

Lots of good reasons.

Compensation is one of those reasons, too. Most people I know want a specific amount because of the acknowledgment piece, or they want their kids to have counselling/tutoring or other services to undue the harm that has occurred. They feel their kids are owed a repair. Rightly so.

I highly suggest you do your research and look at other decisions and what was awarded to people. It will give you a good idea of the range to expect. Also, what arguments were used to justify why it was high or why it was lower. Looking at decisions when the lawyers offer a with prejudice offer and people reject them, can be interesting and eye-opening.

Here are instructions on how to look up case law. Or you can just go to the awards chart that the BC Human Rights Clinic on their website in the resource section, and they link the cases in the chart too! Very helpful.

For more information on the mediation meeting process, BC Human Rights Tribunal has this mediation policy page.

Family Status – Filing a Complaint for YOU

You are representing your child in a human rights complaint. This is not a family human rights complaint. If you want to be compensated for your lost days of work, and/or emotional harm than you will need to file a separate complaint for yourself under family status.

For more detailed information on this click here.