Inflation and Injury to Dignity Damages

The April 2026 decision in McConnell v. Hibbert, is a useful recent example of the continuing movement in human rights damages.

The case involved a claim of discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex in employment. The applicant alleged that an individual respondent, who exercised employment-related control over him, engaged in unwanted physical conduct of a sexual nature at the workplace. The employer respondent had previously settled with the applicant. The proceeding continued against the individual respondent.

The Tribunal found that the conduct amounted to sexual harassment in employment. The incident occurred in the workplace, in the course of the applicant’s employment duties, and involved a person who had employment-related authority or control. The Tribunal also found that there was no basis to treat the conduct as welcome.

The damages issue is what makes the decision especially interesting.

The Tribunal reviewed prior decisions involving sexual harassment and sexual assault in employment. Those cases reflected a range of awards depending on the seriousness of the conduct, the number of incidents, the presence of a power imbalance, the impact on the applicant, and whether there were additional aggravating features such as reprisal, solicitation, or repeated misconduct.

The Tribunal awarded $75,000 for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect.

That award is significant because the Tribunal characterized the misconduct as involving a single incident, rather than a long pattern of repeated harassment. The award therefore shows that a single serious incident of workplace sexual harassment may justify substantial general damages.

The decision is also notable because the Tribunal referred to inflation as a relevant factor when comparing prior awards. This is an important development. Human rights damages are often assessed by reference to earlier decisions. If those earlier decisions are used as benchmarks, it is artificial to ignore the declining value of money over time.

This does not mean that every older award will simply be mechanically adjusted by an inflation calculator. The assessment remains contextual. The Tribunal must still consider the nature of the discrimination, the applicant’s vulnerability, the seriousness of the conduct, the effect on the applicant, and the broader remedial purpose of human rights legislation.

But McConnell does signal that older damages awards may understate present-day compensation if they are treated as static figures. A $40,000 award from ten years ago is not necessarily equivalent to $40,000 today.

For employers, the lesson is direct. Workplace sexual harassment can create substantial liability even where the incident is isolated and even where the employer itself has resolved its part of the case. Individual respondents may remain exposed. Employers should also assume that the range of injury-to-dignity awards will continue to move upward, particularly in serious harassment cases.

For employees and applicants, the decision confirms that the Tribunal will look at the real impact of sexualized misconduct in the workplace, not merely the number of incidents. A single incident may be profoundly humiliating, frightening and harmful, particularly where it occurs in a workplace setting and involves a person with employment-related authority.

McConnell is therefore important for two reasons. First, it confirms that serious workplace sexual harassment can attract a significant injury-to-dignity award even where the conduct occurs in a single incident. Second, it recognizes that inflation may be a legitimate consideration when assessing the modern value of older human rights damages awards.

The practical point is simple: damages for injury to dignity are not frozen in time. As the Tribunal’s damages jurisprudence develops, older awards may remain useful guideposts, but they should not be treated as ceilings.