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Ms. Sophia Stamos started working for Beneplan Benefits Consultants, a branch of Annuity Research and Marketing Services Ltd. on February 27, 1997 as a claims adjudicator. Beneplan specialized in providing life, dental and health benefit plans to third parties. An avant-garde concept at the time, Beneplan was a work in progress with flexible, evolving and overlapping responsibilities. Mr. Mark Faiz Sakkejha owned Beneplan. Ms. Stamos was given greater responsibilities than just adjudication of claims and had enough liberty to carry out her functions. Ms. Stamos’ work was highly appreciated and she was granted a raise within her first year of service. Ms. Stamos’ title was changed to Senior Administrator/Adjudicator with the arrival of Ms. Jane Mandat, Manager of Administration and Benefit Implementation, responsible for everyday operations of Beneplan. No change of work accompanied the title but the quantity moved onto become copious and a raise followed. The work environment became turbulent for Ms. Stamos with the arrival of Mr. Faiz’s uncle Mr. Mustafa Hammami, hired to input data relating to disability coverage. Ms. Stamos and Mr. Hammami had to report to Ms. Mandat and he disliked this. Ms. Stamos did not interact with Mr. Hammami before Ms. Mandat left on maternity leave early November except for one sore incident in October. On that occasion while returning from lunch, Ms. Mandat told Ms. Stamos that Mr. Hammami was infuriated and accused her of sabotaging his computer system and belittling him. To settle the issue, they were summoned by Mr. Faiz for a meeting. Mr. Hammami exhibited unruly behaviour shouting and speaking over others asserting that Ms. Stamos was nothing more than an adjudicator. Mr. Faiz could do nothing to keep Mr. Hammami monitored and the meeting ended futile. Mr. Faiz met with Ms. Stamos later on, assured that accusations on her were baseless, and asked her to keep her door locked and avoid Mr. Hammami. Terrified, Ms. Stamos could not make sense of why the Mr. Hammami was vexed and recorded the incident in her personal notes. On November 5, 1999, Mr. Hammami stormed into Ms. Stamos’ office bursting with rage, towered over her, pointed in her face and challenged her to explain her job. He payed no heed to the business card bearing title of Senior Administrator/Adjudicator she offered him. Ms. Stamos then met with Mr. Faiz who mediated a meeting of hers with Mr. Hammami. Like before he displayed unprecedented behaviour and blamed that, it was Ms. Stamos who was concerned over trivialities like titles. Ms. Stamos found Mr. Hammami’s actions to be threatening as he was only inches away from her face and kept pointing at her throughout. To Mr. Faiz the whole incident was a velitation and did not require serious considerations, so he asked Mr. Daurio, to change Ms. Stamos’ title as Claims Manager. Ms. Stamos lost faith in Mr. Faiz’s ability to be fair as he gave into Mr. Hammami’s demands and waved away the indecorous manner it was raised. Though the title change meant no change in responsibilities, she felt aloof and discriminated. Mr. Hammami walked into Ms. Stamos’ office on November 11, 1999 wanting to shake hands with her. He tried to make a conversation about how he knew she was upset over the title change. His calm broke lose when she refused and told her that he steps on men’s heads and tramples them to ground when they try to step on his toes and his method of dealing unruly women was totally different. Ms. Stamos felt unprotected and was worried that he might harm her. Her fears adversely affected her health and performance. Her anxiety caused her to grind her teeth and she broke one of her molars creating a dental expense of $3,600. Ms. Stamos’ patience reached the brim on January 21, 2000 when Mr. Hammami berated her on not delivering cheques to him in person. Her rationale that it was kept ready on her table for him to retrieve only served to infuriate him. He yelled at her and she reciprocated it asking him to leave her office. She slammed then door shut after him and he kicked it open leaving a footmark evident. Terrified she demanded him to get away and he did not budge until she called him a filthy man and locked the door shut. Mr. Faiz took notice of the incident and informed Ms. Stamos and Mr. Hammami that they should learn to work together or else he would have to resort to decisions none of them would find palatable. Ms. Stamos was done with the abuse and told Mr. Faiz that she wanted to quit. Mr. Faiz cajoled her to stay and think over before finalising the decision. Though she returned to work, she was dishevelled and called the police. Mr. Faiz was found it totally unreasonable. Memorandums were sent back and forth and finally Ms. Stamos decided that she could stay until August 31 by continuing her duties and training her replacement. She found it difficult to work in an unpredictable environment and left on April 7, 2000. She found it difficult to find a new job without receiving proper job records and the promised reference letter from the defendant.
Applicable Legislation
Ontario Human Rights Code asserts that each person deserves equal treatment without discrimination (Human Rights Code, 1990). As employer, Mr. Faiz had the responsibility to ensure that Ms. Stamos had a safe and stress free environment to work in (Coursehero.com, 2018). His tolerance to Mr. Hammami’s behaviour can be treated as a silent approval. Mr. Faiz should has taken steps to prevent Mr. Hammami from harassing and taunting Ms. Stamos (Coursehero.com, 2018). Despite of other employees reporting about Mr. Hammami’s inappropriate and profane language, Mr. Faiz chose to stay away from displeasing his uncle and allowed others to suffer physically and mentally from his abusive tirade (Coursehero.com, 2018).