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Case9.docx9. Silvera v. Olympia Jewellery Corp., 2015 ONSC 3760
Human rights damages award for sexual assault
Ms. Silvera was an administrative employee of Olympia Jewelry Corp. (“Olympia”). Over the course of her employment, Ms. Silvera was subjected to three separate serious instances of sexual assault by her boss, Mr. Morris Bazik, and ongoing sexual harassment. Mr. Bazik touched Ms. Silvera’s breasts on several occasions, touched her buttocks, insisted she wear jewelry so he could touch her, and gave her massages. Mr. Bazik would require Ms. Silvera to stay late at work after other employees had left for the day (which was unpaid time) and used the time alone to assault Ms. Silvera and harass her with questions and comments about her personal life. Ms. Silvera began to suffer significant emotional damage as a result of this ongoing sexual harassment.
Ms. Silvera was terminated from Olympia as a result of a leave she was required to take for a dental emergency and unfounded allegations of misconduct. Ms. Silvera brought an action for damages for sexual assault, battery and harassment against Olympia and Mr. Bazik personally following her termination. Neither Olympia nor Mr. Bazik participated in the trial and, consequently, their defence was struck and all of the factual allegations pleaded in Ms. Silvera’s claim were therefore deemed to be admitted by Olympia and Mr. Bazik.
Ultimately, the Ontario Superior Court awarded damages of nearly $300,000 to Ms. Silvera for sexual assault, battery, wrongful termination, and violation of her rights under the Human Rights Code. Among other things, the damages were intended to compensate Ms. Silvera for costs of future therapy care and future loss of income. The court also awarded damages of $15,000 to Ms. Silvera’s daughter pursuant to the Ontario Family Law Act for loss of guidance, care and companionship.
Introduction
This paper will review the decision from Silvera v. Olympia Jewellery Corp., 2015 ONSC 3760. Harassment is a social act of applying aggressive pressure or intimidation of an individual to another or one party to another. The case involves the former employee of Olympia Jewelry Corporation, Ms. Silvera, the manager of the company Mr. Morris Bazik and the company. Mr. Bazik sexually harassed Ms. Silvera several times including touching her inappropriately. Furthermore, the company, Olympia Corp dismissed her from work without any legal grounds. The case analysis aims at providing information regarding the legal background for the adoption of firm-wide harassment policies. This will enable companies to maintain the required legal framework of all the companies in the Republic
Rules
The world recognizes harassment as one of the world’s major setback for companies and had to develop a worldwide rule that governs the harassment program relative to the harmonization of other company rules. Yet still, Lublin (2017) reports that most of the calls to the law firms are related to sexual harassment similar to the case of Ms. Silvera against Olympia and Mr. Morris Bazik. Many global companies have a code of conduct that also have to be updated to provide and define the various rules involving customers, the relation of employees, the relation of associates and even the management. One of these specifies exactly that all companies regardless of the size should adopt policies that try to eradicate the harassment of all the stakeholders in the policies.
Olympia Company ought to have a legal groundwork pertaining to harassment policies. The rules should be drafted and are to be fitted in the company constitution where the rules that partially govern relation of all stakeholders in a company and treatment is formulated in the legal affairs of the company.
The harassment program is to be subdivided into various categories as the law suggests. Opposite gender intimidation of the stakeholders similar to what Mr. Morris Bazik did to Ms. Silvera is the first priority. This covers the sexual harassment and other bodily harm. The next agenda item of the program with regard to the company acted in respect to the business law and firm’s association. Some of the harassment schemes are the marketing criteria. Rules sometimes have the tendency to be broken which provides for consequences and rewards.
Analysis
The harassment policies will serve a major role in the relation of all stakeholders in the company. The policies will make sure that sexual harassment always indicted or conflicted in regard to gender will come to an end. Since several cases of the sexual harassment are reported on a daily basis then the company’s involvement in forming and regulating these policies will ensure that there are minimal cases reported on this matter. Before the review, the relational policies will be firmer on the outstanding rules and regulations governing them. All genders will be free to associate based on a code of conduct made precise by the policy on harassment.
In relation to the case in this study, it is to be expected that Olympia has a code of conduct that every employee is aware of including the manager. Therefore, for the manager to go against the rules that he should be helping to protect, he had to be sued. In this case all the harassment claims by the plaintiff had to be upheld since the accused refused to show up at the hearing probably to protect the image of the company. Unlike in the past when such acts would be committed to an employee of a company who would remain silent and suffer alone, today such acts are punishable by law. Furthermore, the global human rights are against termination of an employee’s employment on unlawful grounds (White, 2017). Consequently, the company had to be penalized for the financial and psychological damages caused on Ms. Silvera.
Ethical relations which were ignored in the recent past including termination of an employee’s contract on unlawful basis will be brought to light with the establishment of these harassment policies. Larger companies in the world have a better ethical framework to deal with such situations and unethical reports are usually rare. With such fines channeled towards Olympia Company and Mr. Morris Bazik, other companies will have to be on the lookout not to break any ethical code of conduct against an employee, stakeholders or customers.
Recommendation
In the case of Ms. Silvera against Olympia Company and Mr. Morris Bazik, it is clear that the code of conduct was breached. The fact that failed to appear for the hearing meant that they admitted to breaking the law. Other companies need to have in place better ethics policies to avoid such huge damage awards to the complainant.
Conclusion
In conclusion it is prudent to state that a company which recognizes the policies with regard to the association is one that has collectively joined agenda and a realizable goal. These policies play an important role in developing the stakeholders in a mutually comfortable system. Most well- performing companies have a well-developed policy regarding relations in the company setting. Unlawful dismissal from work as witnessed in the case is a big offense and Olympia had to answer for it. On the other hand, Mr. Morris Bazik breached the ethical code of conduct on
sexual harassment deserving heavy punishment. I would like to support the review and introduction of new policies that relate to the association of all the stakeholders of the company. For instance, Olympia Company must ensure that all the stakeholders are brought on board to avoid the similar scenario that occurred between Ms. Silvera and Mr. Morris Bazik.
In conforming to the standards of the business and companies act, it is associated and declared that all company reviews should be reviewed in accordance with a stipulated schedule. This calls for a mandatory review for critical company review of policies. This being a legal obligation then it is a mandatory process.
References
Lublin, D. (2017). What’s the potential cost of a workplace sexual harassment claim? The Globe and Mail Inc.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=White%2C+P.+R.+%282017%29.+Human+Rights+Tribunal+Awards+%24150%2C000+in+General+Damages+for+Sexual+%09Harassment.+Grosman%2C+Grosman+%26+Gale+LLP.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=JBG7Wt1zz4Nfms6usAU
1- In the introduction, where is the mention of the law?
2- What is/are your recommendations for this firm?
