Gay jail guard calls damages far too small
$100,000 for homophobic slurs at work
OTTAWA — A gay Ottawa jail guard who was subjected to “vile” harassment and a poisoned workplace has been awarded nearly $100,000 in damages, including the highest amount that Ontario’s grievance settlement board had ever awarded for breaches of the Human Rights Code.
But Robert Ranger called the decision awarding him just a fraction of the more than $3.5 million in damages he had sought a “farce” and alleged it would do nothing to keep the province’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services from allowing what he experienced to happen again.
“The message is, ‘You should have stayed in the closet,’ ” Ranger said Thursday.
He took his case to the grievance settlement board after enduring four years of homophobic slurs and other abuse from co-workers at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.
“I don’t want to come across as in money is the factor here,” Ranger said.
“Decisions like this are not going to make the employer change their habits. It is going to continue. This is nothing for the employer.”
In a decision released Wednesday, grievance settlement board vice-chair Deborah Leighton agreed with Ranger significant damages were due against the ministry for the “permanent” harm caused to him, but concluded it should be nowhere near the millions sought by Ranger.
Instead, Leighton awarded Ranger $45,000 in damages for violations of the Human Rights Code — the largest award ever made by the grievance settlement board for such breaches, she said.
“To put a value on every verbal taunt or vicious email that Mr. Ranger endured would be a herculean task,” Leighton said. “It is clear from the evidence that the harassment at OCDC was profoundly humiliating to the griever. Although he tried to ignore it, eventually it broke him. He felt victimized and lost self-respect.”
Leighton concluded the ministry did “almost nothing” to address the homophobic atmosphere in the jail.
Ranger was suicidal, felt isolated and depressed and can never again work in a correctional facility as a result of the workplace harassment, the tribunal heard.
Leighton also awarded Ranger an additional $53,000 for his employer’s failure to find him a suitable job somewhere else when he was ready to return to work, along with 22 weeks of vacation credit and a top up in pay at his new job at probation and parole for overtime and shift premiums he would have earned had he been able to remain a jail guard.
Leighton had already ordered in February 2011 that the ministry pay Ranger $244,242 in lost wages.
Leighton concluded there was no evidence to justify the ministry’s delay in investigating Ranger’s complaints about his treatment, which occurred over four years between 1998 and 2002.
The only evidence the employer did anything about a workplace poisoned toward gays and lesbians was to suspend a co-worker for three days, Leighton said.
She found that the ministry also failed to accommodate Ranger, dragging its heels when it came to finding him a suitable new job.
There were long periods where nothing was done, she found. A representative from an insurance company testified she had never seen an employer so reluctant to return an employee to work.
Leighton denied Ranger’s damage claims for the loss of his relationship and pain and suffering.
While Ranger had suffered “much harm,” Leighton did not find the ministry’s conduct “so malicious or outrageous” as to merit punitive damages.