B.C. Appeal Court dismisses female police officers' sexual harassment case

Former police officer Lauren Phillips speaks outside B.C Supreme Court. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

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Female police officers who hoped to fight a class-action lawsuit against B.C.’s municipal police forces for sexual harassment and discrimination must instead have complaints heard through their unions’ grievance process, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled.

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Six officers who put their names forward as representative plaintiffs had asked B.C.’s highest court to overturn a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that filing grievances, not a lawsuit, was the legal way to settle their disputes against 13 municipalities and their police boards.

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The plaintiffs are current and former officers, including Lauren Phillips, Anja Bergler, Helen Irvine, Cary Ryan, Ann-Sue Piper and one person whose identity is protected by court order on a related matter.

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The proposed lawsuit alleged the agencies failed to prevent, investigate or remedy the behaviour.

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They claim there was negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, intentional infliction of mental suffering, harassment, civil conspiracy, breach of privacy and violations of their rights under Section 15 of the Charter, according to the Appeal Court judgment.

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The officers allege the lower court judge erred because he treated the class action as “legally irrelevant” and considered their dispute to be about “working conditions” under a collective agreement instead of a “systemic claim alleging institutional negligence and structural discrimination,” according to the Appeal Court judgment written by Chief Justice Leonard Marchand.

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They said the Supreme Court judge failed to consider the “collective and system nature” of the allegations, he wrote.

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Marchand wrote they made “compelling arguments” for a class-action lawsuit for their claim because they considered it more than a “mere … labour dispute,” but a failure by municipalities and police boards to prevent, investigate and fix a “poisoned police culture.”

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The officers argued it’s “not just individual disputes about entitlements under collective agreements,” he said.

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They say because of their “vulnerability as female police officers,” a class-action lawsuit was the only way to pursue their rights and ensure accountability, he said.

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Despite these arguments, they overlooked the fact that the law gives arbitrators the exclusive jurisdiction over labour disputes under union contracts, Marchand said.

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He wrote that lower court judge had ruled their complaints fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the grievance process and are therefore outside the court’s jurisdiction. The officers failed to identify where the lower court judge made an error in his judgment, Marchand wrote.

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“I have nothing of significance to add to the judge’s careful analysis,” Marchand wrote. “I am in substantial agreement with it and would therefore dismiss the appeal.”

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Marchand’s ruling was agreed to by the two other Appeal Court judges on the panel, Justice Harvey Groberman and Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten.

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