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PENTICTON - An injured woman who complained she lost her job because of a disability — at a Penticton-based non-profit society whose mandate includes advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities — will be allowed to proceed to a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision.

Evelyn Travis claims she was discriminated against by her employer, the Penticton and Area Access Society because of a physical disability.

Travis was employed by the society from Feb. 1, 2014 to Aug. 10, 2016, working 20 hours per week as an advocacy outreach worker, according to a decision issued by the tribunal earlier this month. On April 30, 2016 she was involved in a motorcycle accident. Travis says she sustained various injuries which she describes as "concussion-like symptoms, ankle sprain, torn knee ligament, injuries to her neck and various other soft tissue injuries."

She was told by the society her job would be held open for her return until Aug. 10, 2016.

Travis began a gradual return to work in late June and on the advice of her doctor increased her work load to a four-hour shift once a week before the society terminated her on Aug. 10, 2016, the tribunal decision says.

Travis says the society's executive director told her, “I wish there was a different way to end this, but there’s no guarantee what will happen to you in the next little while. Or I mean when you can come back or when you can’t come back.”

The society applied for a dismissal of the complaint, claiming it had accommodated her injuries to the point of undue hardship and offered her $2,500 as damages for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect. It argued paying more than $2,500 would severely limit the society's mandate, "resulting in one of its programs being shut down and take resources away from the vulnerable population it serves."

Tribunal member Barbara Korenkiewicz says in the decision "this improperly focuses the offer on the society’s work and ability to pay rather than compensating Ms. Travis for discrimination contrary to the Human Rights Code. While I appreciate that the society does important work assisting vulnerable members of our society, the purposes of the code are to address and remedy discrimination."

Korenkiewicz said the society considered its internal procedures, but has done nothing to ensure similar matters won't be handled the same in the future. 

"It is unclear to me whether the society’s obligations under the Code were addressed in that process at all," she wrote. "In particular, I am not persuaded that the society understands the full extent of what the duty to accommodate an employee’s disability to the point of undue hardship requires."

The tribunal was not persuaded the society’s settlement offer was reasonable, and has denied the society’s application to dismiss the complaint.

The matter will now proceed to a hearing with Korenkiewicz encouraging both parties to take advantage of mediation services to resolve the matter.

The society is a non-profit organization works to alleviate the effects of poverty on vulnerable populations and runs a disability advocacy program, a legal advocacy program and a community outreach program.

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