Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Section 332 of the Workers Compensation Act provides statutory immunity barring civil actions against WorkSafeBC and its employees for acts, omissions, or decisions within their jurisdiction.

• No private law duty of care exists for the Board in exercising quasi-judicial functions, precluding negligence claims.

• The BC Human Rights Tribunal holds exclusive jurisdiction over discrimination complaints under the Human Rights Code, eliminating a tort of discrimination in British Columbia.

• Charter damages cannot be pursued against statutory decision-makers protected by legislative immunity.

• Psychiatric injury and mental distress claims require an underlying breach or tort to succeed and are not freestanding causes of action.

• Declaratory relief and injunctions against administrative bodies must be sought through judicial review, not civil actions.

Background and facts of the case

Munchang Choi, a self-represented plaintiff, filed an amended notice of civil claim on June 12, 2025, against WorkSafeBC (the "Board") and several of its employees—Abrahani Nabeel, Seely Brocklebank, Danielle Burgess, Jami Fowlie, and Craig Maynard. The dispute arose from Mr. Choi's dissatisfaction with how the Board handled his matter. Mr. Choi suffers from a psychiatric disorder and requested that the Board accommodate him by allowing all communications to proceed in writing rather than by telephone. He provided medical documentation supporting his position that he could not process real-time verbal exchanges due to mental health symptoms including confusion, panic attacks, auditory hallucinations, and disassociation. The Board did not accommodate him and continued communicating with Mr. Choi over the telephone. Mr. Choi alleged that this failure to accommodate resulted in serious medical consequences and resulted in all his claims being rejected.

The motion to strike

The defendants brought an application to strike Mr. Choi's claim pursuant to Rule 9-5(1) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules, arguing that the claim disclosed no viable cause of action. Under this rule, the court possesses the power to dismiss claims that cannot succeed. However, this power is considered draconian; a plaintiff should not be driven from the judgment seat if there is any chance of success. The court must assume the pleaded facts are true and consider whether, even on that basis, the claim is bound to fail due to a radical defect. No evidence is admissible on such a motion—the exercise proceeds solely on the pleadings. On this application, Mr. Choi applied for an accommodation to require the defendants' application to proceed by way of written submission. This accommodation was granted.

Statutory immunity under Section 332

A central issue was whether Section 332 of the Workers Compensation Act barred Mr. Choi's claims entirely. This provision prohibits any action from being brought against the Board or its directors, officers, or employees in respect of any act, omission, or decision that was within the Board's jurisdiction or that the Board or its personnel believed was within their jurisdiction. Mr. Choi's claim asserts that the Board is a statutory body created under the Act and that the personal defendants are all agents or employees of the Board engaged in the conduct complained of "while acting in the course and scope of their employment." He attempted to distinguish his case by arguing that the conduct complained of did not arise in the adjudicative function of the defendants but rather arises out of their "non-adjudicative operational behavior" in refusing to accommodate his preferred communication modality. The Court found that Section 332 language is broad enough to bar a claim being brought in respect of operational decisions of employees of the Board, including the decision to proceed with Mr. Choi's claim by way of the telephone. Relying on the precedent set in Lam v Landmark Health Corp., 2023 BCSC 1782, the Court concluded that Section 332 prohibits the claim against both the Board and the personal defendants who were acting in the course of their employment, and no amendments to the claim can be made to overcome this statutory bar.

Analysis of the pleaded causes of action

Even in the absence of Section 332, the Court examined whether any reasonable causes of action were disclosed. Under the "legal basis" of his claim, Mr. Choi states that he is not challenging the merits or findings of any WCAT or WorkSafeBC decision. Rather, he seeks compensation for "independent tortious harm caused by administrative failures to accommodate a known psychiatric disorder." Mr. Choi pleaded four bases for his claim: negligence, breach of statutory duty under the Human Rights Code and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, psychiatric injury and mental distress, and failure to accommodate under the Charter. On the negligence claim, Mr. Choi asserts the defendants owed him a duty of care to take reasonable steps to accommodate his disabilities. The Court noted the law is clear that the Board does not owe parties a private law duty of care in the exercise of its quasi-judicial functions. Cases such as Burns et al. v British Columbia (Workers Compensation Board), 2003 BCSC 1826, and Chisamore v. Cumis Life Insurance Company et al., 2006 BCSC 462, affirmed by 2006 BCCA 557, confirm this principle. While Mr. Choi does not challenge the decisions reached in his case, he nevertheless challenges the actions taken by the Board's employees in the exercise of their adjudicative processes under the Act. The Court found that the allegations against the defendants arise in the exercise of the Board's quasi-judicial functions; as such, the defendants do not owe a private law duty of care to Mr. Choi, and it is plain and obvious that such claim cannot succeed. Regarding breach of statutory duty, Mr. Choi relies on both the Code and the Charter. In relation to the Code, Mr. Choi submits that discrimination based on mental disability is prohibited and accommodation is required. The Court observed that there is no tort of discrimination in British Columbia and that the BC Human Rights Tribunal has exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate complaints under the Code. As for Charter claims, Mr. Choi submits that his s. 7 and s. 15(1) rights have been infringed. Section 7 guarantees the right to "life, liberty and security of the person," but Mr. Choi alleged no facts which engage s. 7, and this claim cannot stand. Section 15 guarantees the right to "equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination." The Supreme Court of Canada in Ernst v. Alberta Energy Regulator, 2017 SCC 1, held that statutory decision-makers cannot be subjected to claims for Charter damages generally, and particularly not in the face of a statutory immunity such as in the case before the Court. The psychiatric injury and mental distress claim, relying on Saadati v. Moorhead, 2017 SCC 28, also failed because such damages are not freestanding—they must arise as a result of some breach or tort, and no reasonable claim that could give rise to such damages has been pleaded. Finally, Mr. Choi's failure to accommodate claim relied on Andrews v. Grand & Toy Alberta Ltd., [1978] 2 S.C.R. 229, but the Court found the relevance of this case unclear since Andrews is a negligence case reviewing certain damage awards and is typically used to establish the upper limit of a non-pecuniary damages award. It does not establish a right to damages for a failure to accommodate a disability.

Jurisdiction to grant relief

The Court also addressed whether it had jurisdiction to grant the relief Mr. Choi sought, which included a declaration that the defendants breached their duty to accommodate, an order that the defendants implement mandatory training, and an injunction prohibiting the defendants from communicating with him by telephone. Declaratory relief for discrimination must be sought before the Human Rights Tribunal, which holds jurisdiction under Section 37(2)(d)(iii) of the Code. The reasoning in Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology v. Bhadauria, [1981] 2 S.C.R. 181 in relation to the Ontario Human Rights Code was found equally applicable. Regarding injunctive relief against the defendants who are a government body and its employees and agents, prerogative writs are only available through the exercise of the Court's supervisory jurisdiction on a judicial review. The Court in Lockyer-Kash v. Workers' Compensation Board, 2013 BCCA 459, confirmed that where a matter had been entrusted to an administrative body, an action for declaratory relief cannot be brought before the Court, and the only jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to interfere with orders of the WCB and WCAT in respect of workers' compensation is the supervisory jurisdiction exercised through judicial review. The Court has no jurisdiction to make such an order in an action, such as this filed by Mr. Choi.

Ruling and outcome

The Honourable Madam Justice W.A. Baker ordered that the amended notice of civil claim in this action be struck, without leave to amend, and the action dismissed, pursuant to Rule 9-5(1) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules. Costs at Scale B were ordered in favour of the defendants. No specific monetary amount was stated in the judgment.