Burnaby’s Café La Foret has lost an appeal of $40,600 in damages awarded to a baker it fired for sexual harassment in 2020.
Song Hwan Cho, formerly the head baker at La Foret, successfully sued the restaurant in B.C. Supreme Court for wrongful dismissal, winning $15,600 in damages in lieu of notice, $25,000 in aggravated and punitive damages and court costs.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Palbinder Kaur Shergill found Cho, who was 60 years old at the time, had sexually harassed 28-year-old Nam Gyeong Lee, a baker who reported to him.
Lee told a manager that Cho had touched her upper back, shoulders and buttocks while they were standing next to each other at the restaurant’s bakery station counter on Nov. 9, 2020.
Shergill concluded Cho’s conduct was "entirely inappropriate” but not sufficient to justify termination without cause.
She awarded the aggravated and punitive damages because La Foret had refused to issue Cho a record of employment unless he signed an incriminating affidavit prepared without any meaningful input from him and then fired him after he refused to sign it.
Cho testified the affidavit had made him out to be a “sexual offender,” and Shergill said La Foret had exposed him to “serious legal jeopardy” since the incident had been reported to the police.
In its appeal, La Foret’s lawyers argued Shergill had erred on a number of points, including awarding a single amount for punitive and aggravated damages, which should have be awarded separately.
That was the only point on which the B.C. Court of Appeal agreed with La Foret.
The court ruled there had been no “material error” in Shergill’s reasons or analysis, but that she should have awarded aggravated and punitive damages separately.
“They are distinct remedies with different objects,” stated the court’s Sept. 13 ruling.
The court further found the $25,000 Shergill awarded was warranted for aggravated damages alone.
In the end, the court ordered the word “punitive” to be taken out of the earlier court order but for the dollar amount to stay the same.
The court also concluded Cho had been “substantially successful” in his appeal and was entitled to court costs.
A police file related to the 2020 incident at La Foret was closed without charges, according to the Burnaby RCMP.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
Email [email protected]
