Top court rules breast cancer cases tied to workplace

B.C. medical workers contend they developed disease as a result of lab work

OTTAWA— The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in favour of three British Columbia medical workers who argued they developed breast cancer as a result of their jobs.

Katrina Hammer, Patricia Schmidt and Anne MacFarlane, who worked in a lab at Mission Memorial Hospital, were among seven women at the lab who developed breast cancer. The Workers’ Compensation Board originally denied their applications for compensation benefits on the grounds their breast cancers were not occupational diseases.

But rulings by the Workers’ Compensation Administrative Tribunal overturned those decisions.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal, however, said the tribunal’s de- cisions were “patently unreasonable,” because there was no evidence that the women’s cancer was caused by their work environment and the tribunal ignored expert advice to the contrary. The court suggested the cases were a statistical anomaly.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in favour of the women.

Justice Russell Brown, writing for the majority, said the tribunal’s finding was not patently unreasonable.

“While the record on which that decision was based did not include confirmatory expert evidence, the tribunal nonetheless relied upon other evidence which, viewed reasonably, was capable of supporting its finding of a causal link between the workers’ breast cancers and workplace conditions,” he wrote.

He said the law sets a lower burden of proof in such cases and must favour the women.

“Where the evidence leads to a draw, the finding must favour the

“When evidence leads to a draw, the finding must favour the worker.” JUSTICE RUSSELL BROWN SUPREME COURT

worker,” he wrote.

Justice Suzanne Côté disagreed sharply with the majority.

“On my reading, there is no evidence and, certainly, no positive evidence, capable of supporting a causal link between the workers’ employment and the development of their respective disease.”