Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 10:16:32 -0300

From: Vaughan Black

Subject: Workers' comp for getting fired?

The recent decision of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in Logan v. Workers' Compensation Board may not qualify as an obligations case, narrowly construed. Nevertheless, it's close in subject matter to some of our recent discussions (mental distress in a contractual setting) and also rather strange, so I'll pass on the citation.

Logan tried to claim workers' compensation benefits for the stress consequent on getting fired. The statute permitted recovery for stress arising from job-related traumatic events, but until Logan's claim no one had tried to argue that getting fired was such an event. The court was quite aware that the WC Act was never intended to provide compensation for getting fired, even where that resulted in mental distress, but it acknowledged that the words of the statute, on their plain meaning, seemed to permit such a claim. It denied the claim, noting that in the relevant statute the words "traumatic event" had to be given an objective meaning and that getting fired was not objectively traumatic.

vb

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