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NWT HRC orders payment for hurt feelings
by Scott Gilbreath ~ January 30th, 2009
In three recent discrimination claims, the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission has ordered businesses to pay over $38,000. Of this, $17,500 has been paid out to compensate for injuries to feelings and dignity.
The most recent case involves a wheelchair-bound man whose feelings were hurt by being required to pay for a cab company’s handi-van service.
The most recent decision came on Jan. 7, when the commission’s adjudicator James R. Posynick ordered City Cabs to pay Bill Burles $1,500 for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect” for repeatedly having to pay a $6 service charge to use the company’s handi-van vehicle.
[...]
Burles had asked for $3,500 in compensation “for loss of quality of life and financial expenses.”He said the dignity compensation can be viewed as reimbursements for things you can’t itemize on a list and don’t have monetary value.
“Like a social life,” he said.
The NWT HRC ordered City Cabs to subsidise Mr Burles’s social life.
The Yellowknifer newspaper points out the obvious: By accepting hurt feelings as grounds for compensation, “the NWT Human Rights Commission threatens to open the floodgates to countless complaints”.
Careful, Mr Editorialist, that could hurt the feelings of “human rights” commissioners.
h/t: No Apologies
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January 30th, 2009 at 02:38 PM
Gee and our (since closed) taxi was going to buy some handi-vans, glad we didn’t. Get a life Commissar! Maybe the City of Yellowstreak should run the service and put up with the complaints. $6 extra is a bargain. NWT = No Wisdom Today!
January 31st, 2009 at 06:50 PM
[...] NWT HRC orders payment for hurt feelings …. [...]