Woman fired amid racism allegations awarded $28K

TORONTO - A white woman fired from the predominantly black women's shelter where she worked because of alleged racist attitudes won more than $28,000 in severance pay Thursday for wrongful dismissal.

In a strongly worded judgment, Ontario Superior Court Justice Gloria Klowak found no evidence of racist conduct, denounced the method of firing, and warned against allowing subjective feelings of hurt to colour good employment practices.

"No one wants to marginalize or deny the validity of people's feelings,'' Klowak said in a lengthy oral judgment following a five-day trial.

"However, this type of overreaching to paint the plaintiff as a bad person with bad motives ... raises the concern that the employer is trying to find anything it can to bolster its allegations.''

The case, believed to be one of the first litigations involving dismissal for anti-black racist conduct, involved Karen Butler-Lynch, 49, who was fired Sept. 1, 2006, from a busy, publicly funded women's shelter in Toronto called Dr. Roz's Healing Place.

Butler-Lynch, who is white, had worked there for more than six years. Almost all employees and clients were people of colour.

Problems with her superiors arose out of issues such as staff schedules and the treatment of shelter residents, and Butler-Lynch found herself accused of insubordination.

During a mediation session last August, the shelter's executive director, Roz Roach, apparently said Butler-Lynch could never know what it was like to be a black woman.

Butler-Lynch allegedly responded by saying it was "challenging'' to be a white woman working almost exclusively with people of colour.

"I'm a white woman with blue eyes and freckles, and I used to have blond hair,'' Butler-Lynch allegedly said. "Do you know what a challenge it is to work with all these women of colour?''

Roach and the others concluded the comments were oppressive and evidence of a deep-seated racist attitude.

As a result, the shelter fired Butler-Lynch. The termination notice was sent to an address she hadn't lived at for three years, then given to her at work by a taxi driver on the Friday of the Labour Day long weekend.

"The plaintiff did excellent work at the shelter for some six years with no sustainable suggestion of racism or racist remarks,'' Klowak concluded.

"The termination was thoughtless, ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-executed.''

Klowak awarded Butler-Lynch six months' severance and a further two months' pay in damages for a total of $28,028.22.

The judge also warned against using the legal system to sort out "unremarkable'' workplace issues "such as personality conflicts and different views of policy and procedure'' she said are found in almost all workplace settings.

"They have no place in the courtroom as somehow supporting just cause for dismissal or as somehow bolstering the employer's allegations of racism,'' Klowak said.

Defence lawyer Selwyn Pieters said he was "quite shocked and amazed'' at the ruling.

"Obviously, the judge didn't get the racism element,'' Pieters said. "I don't think she understood conceptually the stuff about racism and what racism is and what racism means.''

Butler-Lynch's lawyer, Ken Alexander, called the ruling a message to all employers who act on "subjective'' feelings.

"Employers have to be wary of it,'' Alexander said.

Butler-Lynch, who has found herself in difficult financial straits, said she was relieved to receive the compensation, as well as being awarded another $40,000 to cover her legal costs.

"That hasn't sunk in yet,'' she said.