The WestJet check-in area at Pearson International Airport is photographed in Toronto, Saturday, June 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
VANCOUVER – The B.C. Supreme Court has ordered WestJet to hand over all its files on harassment of flight attendants, in a class-action lawsuit alleging widespread misconduct by pilots.
The ruling by Justice Jacqueline Hughes says WestJet has been slow and “potentially adversarial” regarding the documents and it’s unclear why complaint files haven’t been produced in a timely manner.
The underlying claim in the long-running lawsuit, filed in 2016, alleges WestJet breached flight attendants’ contracts by breaking a “promise” to provide a harassment-free workplace.
The ruling posted Friday but dated Dec. 11 says the airline tried to limit document production to complaints against male pilots by female flight attendants who haven’t opted out of the lawsuit.
But Hughes ordered the airline to produce all harassment complaints by flight attendants during the class period, from April 4, 2014, to Feb. 28, 2021, regardless of whom they were against.
The ruling says WestJet has handed over 24 harassment complaints, but the company’s own “internal statistics” indicate there were “significantly more” during that period.
The ruling says some of those complaints involve sexual harassment and sexual assault, and the company’s own documents outline 16 complaints in the last three months of 2018, and 19 in the first quarter of 2022 alone.
Hughes found the airline’s slowness producing documents was a factor in the trial being delayed until October 2025.
Lead plaintiff Mandalena Lewis had applied to the court to have the airline hand over all harassment complaint files for its “entire workforce,” but Hughes ruled that the case only involves alleged breaches of the flight attendants’ employment contracts, not those of other staff.
“It remains unclear how the plaintiff says WestJet’s alleged failure to provide a harassment”‘free workplace for e.g. mechanics, is relevant to whether WestJet breached the anti-harassment promise in class members’ employment contracts,” the ruling says.
However, Hughes said she was satisfied the scope was not limited to harassment complaints by class members against male pilots, as WestJet wanted.
“While the power imbalance allegedly created by that particular relationship clearly plays a central role in the plaintiff’s claim, I find that it is not limited to only those complaints,” she said.
She gave the company 45 days to turn over the additional files, “given the holiday period.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 6, 2025.
