The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has found an optician and his business jointly liable for sexual harassment, sexual solicitation, and creating a poisoned work environment1. In a decision dated September 18, 2025, Adjudicator Lavinia Inbar ordered Williams Davies and his company, WE Davies Opticians, to pay $8,000 in compensation to a former employee, Bryna Flowers, for injury to her dignity, feelings, and self-respect. The adjudicator, however, declined to award the applicant lost wages, finding she had not proven a link between the discrimination and the loss of her job.
The case proceeded to a merits hearing on May 21, 2025, without the participation of the respondents, Mr. Davies or his company. The Tribunal’s decision detailed a lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful effort to maintain contact with the respondents. The respondents’ legal counsel informed the Tribunal in August 2022 that they no longer represented them but failed to provide any updated contact information for their former clients, a requirement under the Tribunal’s rules. Subsequent notices mailed by the Tribunal to the respondents’ known business address were returned as undeliverable. Although records indicated the respondents had attended a Case Management Conference Call in September 2022, all contact was lost after that. In June 2024, the Tribunal asked Ms. Flowers if she had current contact information. Her counsel replied that the business, WE Davies Opticians, had ceased operations and argued that the responsibility to provide new contact information remained with the respondents. Adjudicator Inbar agreed and, citing the Tribunal’s rules, determined it was appropriate to proceed with the hearing without further notice. As a result, the evidence provided by Ms. Flowers and her witness was not cross-examined or contradicted by the respondents.
In their initial Response filed with the Tribunal, the respondents had denied all of the applicant’s allegations. They had also pleaded that Mr. Davies had been diagnosed with dementia and was suffering from memory loss and physical health concerns. However, because the respondents did not appear at the hearing, no evidence was introduced to support these claims or to challenge the applicant’s testimony.
Ms. Flowers testified that she interviewed for a position at the optician’s office on January 9, 2019. She stated that Mr. Davies called her the next day to offer her the job, but during that same call, he asked if she had a boyfriend and stated that he was “looking for companionship.” Ms. Flowers testified that while the conversation made her uncomfortable, she did not perceive it as a threat at the time and accepted the position, starting on January 21, 2019.
According to her evidence, the workplace environment deteriorated quickly. Ms. Flowers testified that before the end of her first week, Mr. Davies told her she was “fuckable” and that she gave him “a hard on.” She testified that this type of behavior became persistent. In another incident during her first week, she alleged that Mr. Davies asked her if she wanted a “tube steak,” and after she looked at him in shock, he said, “I mean a hotdog.” Ms. Flowers stated her belief that “tube steak” was a slang term for a penis. At the end of that same day, she testified, he again said he was looking for a “companion” and asked if she wanted to go canoeing with him.
During her second week of employment, Ms. Flowers testified that Mr. Davies made several comments about female customers who came into the store, allegedly telling her they were “fuckable” and making comments about their appearance. She stated that these comments made her uncomfortable and that she found it “exhausting to have to correct him every day, several times a day.” She also provided evidence that, beginning in her second week, Mr. Davies would urinate in the sink in the common area and at times exposed his penis while doing so. She testified that every time she saw his penis, she was “shocked and humiliated.” She stated that she began looking for a new job at this point.
Ms. Flowers testified that she was “continuously subjected” to Mr. Davies’ “sexual” remarks. She described an incident around early February 2019 involving a female building courier, Kerri Holmes, who later appeared as a witness. Ms. Flowers alleged that Mr. Davies told Ms. Holmes that she gave him “a hard on” and grabbed his crotch as he said it. She also testified that on another day, Mr. Davies again told her, the applicant, that she was “fuckable” and “really screwable.” She further alleged that Mr. Davies once phoned her at home and asked if she “had any friends to be with him sexually.” On or around Valentine’s Day 2019, she testified he asked her what he should “do for Valentine’s Day? Dial 1800 pussy?”
Ms. Flowers’ employment was terminated at the end of February 2019 following a dispute over her wages. In her testimony, Ms. Flowers stated that she “felt” the wage dispute was a pretext and that the real reason for her termination was because she “would not be with [the individual respondent] sexually or introduce him to any of [her] friends for those purposes.” She stated the experience caused her to suffer from anxiety, depression, and insomnia, although she did not provide documentary or medical evidence to support this.
The applicant’s witness, Kerri Holmes, corroborated parts of her testimony. Ms. Holmes, a carrier who worked in the same building, confirmed the incident around February 19, 2019. She testified that while she was speaking with Ms. Flowers, Mr. Davies approached her and said, “You give me a hard-on,” while grabbing his crotch. Ms. Holmes also testified that Mr. Davies had made inappropriate sexual comments to her in the past.
In her analysis, Adjudicator Inbar first had to determine which of the applicant’s allegations, if accepted as credible, met the legal tests for discrimination. She found that the applicant’s testimony was uncontradicted and that she had no basis to find her not credible or reliable. However, the adjudicator did not find that all the alleged conduct was discriminatory. She found that the “tube steak” comment was not clearly sexual, as it is a common slang term for a hotdog. Similarly, she found that the term “companion,” particularly in the context of canoeing, could not be assumed to be sexual without more context. The adjudicator also found it was not clear that Mr. Davies’ alleged habit of urinating in the sink, while unsanitary, was a sexual behaviour directed at the applicant.
Despite these exclusions, the adjudicator accepted the applicant’s testimony regarding the other remarks. She found that comments like “fuckable,” “screwable,” giving him “a hard on,” the “1800 pussy” remark, and asking for friends for sexual purposes were unwelcome remarks of a sexual nature. The adjudicator found that these comments, made by an employer to an employee, constituted sexual harassment contrary to the Human Rights Code. She also found they met the test for sexual solicitation, as they were advances from a person in a position to “confer, grant or deny a benefit,” and Mr. Davies ought to have known they were unwelcome.
The adjudicator also determined that the conduct created a poisoned work environment. She found that an objective bystander would conclude that the repeated and serious sexual remarks, including the incident witnessed by the applicant where Mr. Davies harassed Ms. Holmes, were “sufficient to create a hostile or intolerable work environment.”
Regarding liability, the adjudicator found both Mr. Davies and his corporation, WE Davies Opticians, responsible. While the Code can sometimes shield a corporation from liability for an employee’s actions, the Tribunal’s case law makes an exception under the “organic theory of corporate liability.” Because Mr. Davies was the sole director and “directing mind” of the company, his discriminatory actions were considered the actions of the corporation itself.
Turning to the remedy, Ms. Flowers had requested $66,209 in lost wages, representing the difference in her income from her termination in 2019 until she found new full-time employment in 2022. The adjudicator denied this request entirely. She found that Ms. Flowers had failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that her termination was linked to the discrimination. The evidence, including a Facebook message from the applicant herself on the day she was fired, indicated the termination was the result of a wage dispute. In that message, Ms. Flowers wrote that she was “fired… out of sheer boredom” and did not mention the sexual harassment as the cause. Because the discrimination was not found to be a factor in the loss of her employment, no lost wages were awarded.
Ms. Flowers also sought $100,000 in damages for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect. Adjudicator Inbar found this amount “excessive.” She noted that while the conduct was serious, the applicant’s employment was short, lasting only about one month, and the harassment did not involve any physical contact. She also pointed to the lack of medical evidence to support the claim of “severe anxiety, depression, and insomnia.” The adjudicator distinguished this case from others involving larger awards, which often involved physical assaults, proven reprisals, or longer periods of harassment. Taking all these factors into account, the Tribunal awarded $8,000 as appropriate compensation.
The Tribunal also declined to order non-monetary remedies, such as human rights training, noting that the applicant did not make submissions on them at the hearing and that they would likely be ineffective given the company is defunct and the individual respondent is alleged to have dementia. The respondents were ordered to pay the $8,000, plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest.
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