Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Canada: McDonald’s to pay C$55K for firing non-handwashing employee

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ordered McDonald’s to pay $55,000 for failing to do enough to accommodate an employee whose disabling skin condition prevented her from complying with the restaurant’s hand-washing policy. Among other grounds for its decision, the tribunal cited the following: There was no evidence of: * the relationship between food […]

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ordered McDonald’s to pay $55,000 for failing to do enough to accommodate an employee whose disabling skin condition prevented her from complying with the restaurant’s hand-washing policy. Among other grounds for its decision, the tribunal cited the following:

There was no evidence of:

* the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing;…

(HRHeroBlogs/Northern Exposure, Apr. 15; Ezra Levant).

More: Commenter Bill Poser finds the decision “much more reasonable” than the reporting makes it sound and says, in particular, Northern Exposure cut off a relevant last word from its quote: “…hand-washing frequency“.

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7 Comments

  • We can only hope that members of the tribunal need major surgery in the near future and allow the surgeons in attendance to test their theory of no relation to contamination and hand washing.

    • By Bumper

  • Does this mean if I become ill after not washing my hands, I would be able to sue the BC Huminoid Rights Tribunal?

  • A similar issue has recently arisen in the UK: some Muslim nurses and other hospital staff are refusing to wash their forearms as they are required to do on the grounds that they have to expose them in order to wash them and that this is immodest. As I understand it, the British Medical Association has thus far taken a firm stance, but there is apparently activism by Muslim organizations to exempt Muslim health care workers from the sanitation requirements!

  • I have just read the actual decision and find that it is much more reasonable than is reported by your sources. It most emphatically does not say that McDonalds should abandon its hand-washing policy. What it says is that McDonalds did not inquire sufficiently into the precise nature of the restrictions on Ms. Datt’s ability to wash her hands and whether Ms. Datt’s disability could be accommodated by a suitable choice of duties (such as working the Drive Thru, which requires less frequent hand-washing due to limited food-handling) or working less than a full shift.

    In particular, the decision does NOT contain the outrageous statement that: “There was no evidence of the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing”. This is a serious misquotation by Northern Exposure. What the decision actually says is: “…there was no evidence of the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing frequency.” (p. 65, par. 240, emphasis mine). This is a very different and much more reasonable statement. The point is that Ms. Datt is able to wash her hands, just not “frequently”, and that McDonalds never inquired of Ms. Datt or her physician as to what exactly “frequently” meant and whether she was able to wash her hands with sufficient frequency for jobs such as the Drive Thru position.

  • It sounds like McD’s, with all their resources (even after what they were forced to “donate” to Ms. Liebeck & Co) didn’t do a very good job defending themselves.

  • Uhhh! Rubber gloves?

  • me & our family just parted company with McD. enough of this crap already. was McD told of her condition prior to being employed? if yes McD screwed up. if not fire the person…

    • By eddie