B.C. appeal court restores hospital worker’s discrimination complaint to hearing process

The British Columbia Court of Appeal has restored a human rights tribunal decision allowing a former hospital pharmacy assistant’s discrimination complaint to proceed, finding that a judge intervened too early and failed to give the tribunal’s reasoning the deference it deserved.

The unanimous October 30 decision in Safaei v Vancouver Island Health Authority, 2026 BCCA 427, sets aside a judicial review order that had sent Homa Safaei’s complaint back for reconsideration. It restores the tribunal’s February 2024 refusal to dismiss the complaint without a hearing. The appeal court did not decide that discrimination occurred or award compensation.

Safaei worked at Cowichan District Hospital from February to June 2016. Vancouver Island Health Authority said her probationary dismissal was due in part to difficulties dispensing medication accurately. A union grievance and a workers’ compensation claim arising from her employment were unsuccessful. Her human rights complaint, however, ultimately proceeded on a narrower issue: three alleged statements connected to her religion or place of origin, rather than the termination itself.

Different proceedings, different questions

Safaei, who is originally from Iran and identifies as Muslim, alleged that a manager and co-workers made remarks about immigrants, people from her country and jobs. Whether those statements were made, and whether they contravened the Human Rights Code, remained contested. The tribunal accepted the amended complaint for filing in December 2020 after an earlier court challenge concerning timeliness.

The health authority sought summary dismissal under three provisions of the Code. It argued that other proceedings had appropriately dealt with the complaint’s substance, that continuing would not further the Code’s purposes, or that the complaint had no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal rejected all three grounds in 2024.

The workers’ compensation proceedings had addressed entitlement to compensation for a work-related mental disorder. The Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal rejected that claim, made adverse assessments of Safaei’s credibility and found no bullying or harassment. Those findings formed part of the health authority’s argument that another hearing would improperly revisit a dispute already resolved.

But the human rights tribunal distinguished the question it had to decide. It found that neither WorkSafeBC nor the workers’ compensation appeal tribunal had determined whether the three alleged statements were made or whether the Code had been contravened. The court of appeal found that reading of the earlier decisions reasonable and supported by their contents. It also rejected the reviewing judge’s characterization that those decision-makers had found no discrimination.

The tribunal had acknowledged that one of the alleged statements was raised at the workers’ compensation hearing and that raising all three might have been advisable. Even so, it was not persuaded that finality, fairness and avoiding inconsistent outcomes required dismissal without a hearing. On the complaint’s prospects of success, it considered credibility the central issue requiring a hearing.

Early court intervention required more

Writing for the appeal court, Justice Dickson explained that courts generally wait until an administrative process is finished before reviewing an interim decision. That restraint protects the tribunal’s role and avoids fragmented proceedings, delay and wasted resources. Early review remains possible in exceptional circumstances; the ruling does not create an absolute bar.

The reviewing judge had treated the tribunal’s refusal to dismiss as a distinct, final decision on an issue that would not be revisited at the merits hearing. The health authority likewise argued that its ability to challenge the complaint on that basis would otherwise be lost. The appeal court rejected the assumption that the refusal necessarily prevented the tribunal from considering finality principles or common law doctrines such as issue estoppel later.

For example, the court said earlier factual findings could arguably prevent the tribunal from finding that health authority employees had threatened Safaei. That was a possibility illustrating the continuing relevance of prior findings, rather than a ruling deciding how the eventual hearing must resolve that issue.

The judge also failed to give sufficient weight to the statutory setting and to the delay and wasted resources that could follow another reconsideration. His mistaken understanding that the workers’ compensation decisions had found no discrimination contributed to his decision to intervene early.

Deference did not permit a fresh decision on the complaint

The court separately upheld the tribunal’s decision under the highly deferential patent unreasonableness standard. That standard asks whether the decision, considered as a whole, has a rational and tenable basis. A reviewing court cannot simply reweigh the evidence or set aside a decision because it prefers another interpretation.

Much of the dispute concerned the Supreme Court of Canada’s Figliola framework for deciding whether another proceeding has appropriately dealt with a complaint. The reviewing judge criticized the tribunal’s reference to another decision-maker’s jurisdiction to decide human rights issues under the Code. The health authority maintained that this formulation was too narrow and overlooked overlapping issues decided elsewhere.

The appeal court found that criticism isolated one part of the tribunal’s reasons and placed undue emphasis on its wording. Read as a whole, the tribunal had considered the relevant factors together, including the factual and legal substance of the complaint, fairness and finality. It had not treated concurrent jurisdiction to apply the Code as a strict or decisive requirement. The judge’s approach instead amounted to a disguised correctness review.

The court declined the union intervener’s invitation to provide a broader interpretation of the statutory dismissal provision. That question had not been fully argued and decided through the tribunal process. The result was narrower: the health authority had not shown that this tribunal decision was patently unreasonable, and the decision allowing Safaei’s complaint to proceed was restored.

Source: Safaei v Vancouver Island Health Authority, 2026 BCCA 427.