July 30, 1992 - Preferential Treatment of Married Men

Preferential treatment of married men violates human rights, says Ontario court. It’s not easy persuading senior employees with families to work in remote job locations, but three engineering and consulting companies referred to as “London Monenco” engaged in a joint venture at the Ontario Hydro Generating Station Project at Atikokan, Ontario thought they had a solution. Married employees, the company announced in the early 1980s, would be allowed paid flights home every three weeks. The decision didn’t wash with single employees, of course. So Thomas Geiger, an engineer, and Bob Barboutsis, an architectural planner, filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1984, saying they were discriminated against based on their marital status. They lost at the commission and the Ontario Divisional Court, but on July 30, 1992, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the policy violated the human rights code, and sent the case back to the Human Rights Commission to assess damages. Unmarried employees no doubt cheered when London Monenco found its appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada denied.

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