“Employers should take all potentially discriminatory comments or conduct in the workplace seriously, not just because of the concern for vicarious liability, but also because discriminatory comments and conduct can create a poisonous work environment detrimental to both employees and the employer’s operations.”
So says Rich Appiah, an employment lawyer and principal of Appiah Law in Toronto, after the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ordered an employer to pay a worker $20,000 for relying on a dubious investigation report that determined discriminatory comments from a colleague were not discrimination.
