Tag: #HumanRights

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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.

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Post-Secondary Human Rights Complaint, Settlement Offer

This is a case that involves a nursing student at a post-secondary institution.

Student D v. Selkirk College, 2025 BCHRT 178

[2]               Student D was a student in the Bachelor of Nursing program at Selkirk College. She alleges the College discriminated against her in the area of services on the grounds of mental and physical disability contrary to s.8 of the Code. She says the College failed to reasonably accommodate her disabilities which negatively affected her academic performance, and she ultimately withdrew from the program.

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This is a dismissal application, but it’s a specific type of dismissal application. The respondents offered her a settlement offer that can be disclosed to the tribunal. It is called a “with prejudice” offer.

If you offer a settlement offer to the respondents and you don’t want it to be disclosed to the tribunal, you need to write “without prejudice” at the top of your email/offer.

If you turn down a with prejudice offer, the respondents can file a dismissal application that ultimately forces you to accept the offer. The only way to not accept it is to convince the tribunal that your case is worthy of the time and resources of the tribunal for a hearing, as it will benefit the public interest and potentially make case law advancements. Or you can just not accept it and walk away with nothing.

This case can also give you ideas on what kinds of things you can ask for in a mediation meeting.

This is an important case to read for young adults in post-secondary.

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[7]               Student D has achondroplasia, generalized anxiety disorder, and auditory processing disorder. In September 2017, she started a four-year Bachelor of Nursing program at the College. Student D says that between April 28, 2020, and July 14, 2020, during the practicum portion of her program, she made requests for accommodation to her instructors and school administrators who failed to provide her the requested accommodations. Student D withdrew from her program on September 21, 2020.

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This is what she was offered, which she turned down. She felt the amount was too low. And so now the tribunal has to make a decision about allowing it to continue to a hearing or not. Respondents cannot file this kind of dismissal if the hearing is within the next 4 months.

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[9]               On February 3, 2025, the College made a with prejudice offer to settle the complaint on the following terms:

a.    The amount of $20,000 for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.

b.    The amount of $24,394.30 for lost wages, less statutory deductions, representing a delay to potential graduation from the Bachelor of Nursing program by one year, less her average annual earnings as a care aide and educational assistant, and less a 30% contingency to account for the potential non-graduation from the program.

c.     The College will provide Student D with a letter of regret acknowledging the distress she experienced in the program.

d.    The College will provide a revised transcript replacing any “fail”, “no credit granted” or “partial credit granted” notations with a “withdrawal” notation. The College will also provide a transfer letter endorsing Student D as a candidate for any nursing programs in other post-secondary institutions.

e.    The College will commit to reviewing its Accessibility Services for Students program and making any updates it deems necessary.

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The tribunal dismissed her human rights complaint and allowed her to accept the offer she originally rejected, if she wanted it. You can read more about how they analyzed the appropriate settlement amount in the case. I haven’t pulled any of that out for this blog. Fighting this type of dismissal is low risk because you can always accept the same offer, even if you lose the dismissal application. Sometimes these are posted publicly, and some dismissal applications are private. But this is also a great way to get a public record of your case.

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[10]           The offer remains open for acceptance notwithstanding the filing of the application to dismiss the complaint. The offer will expire two weeks following the Tribunal’s decision on the application to dismiss.

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And the decision from the tribunal is….

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[47]           The Tribunal routinely hears and decides cases that concern disability accommodation in educational settings, and I am not persuaded that the circumstances of the present case engage broader public policy issues that warrant proceeding in the face of a reasonable settlement offer. Further, considerable resources of the parties and the Tribunal would be required for a hearing of this matter. The Tribunal encourages parties to resolve their disputes in good faith on a voluntary basis. The College’s settlement offer contains terms that the Tribunal cannot order at a hearing, such as issuing a letter of regret, providing a revised transcript, and the transfer letter. The College’s offer also includes terms to ensure the discrimination does not occur again by reviewing its accessibility policies and training its faculty. Under the circumstances, I find that allowing this complaint to proceed would not further the purposes of the Code.