No Punitive Damages for Date Rape Drug Slipped into Employee’s Coffee
An employee sued her employer for putting a date rape drug into her coffee. The court declined to order any punitive damages, reasoning that the non-custodial sentence already imposed in criminal court was appropriate punishment.
In a recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision, Badreddine v. Shapovalov, 2019 ONSC 4914 (CanLII), the court declined to award additional compensation for punitive damages against an employer who put a date rape drug into an employee’s coffee. The employee did not drink the drug-laced coffee.
The court did award compensation for the employee’s emotional distress and trauma (“general damages” of $50,000) and compensation for the employee’s loss of ability to work in the future (“loss of competitive advantage” in the amount of $50,000). But the court declined to punish the employer with any additional award of punitive damages.
Damages
Criminal conduct is prosecuted by the government and punished according to criminal sentencing principles. A victim could also choose to personally sue a wrongdoer for the same misconduct by launching a civil law suit. In a civil law suit, the court typically redresses a wrong by awarding monetary compensation payable by the wrongdoer. These are called “damages.”
A court decides what amount of damages is appropriate by reviewing evidence of the actual losses or harm suffered. The focus is on compensating for actual losses which can be demonstrated by evidence.
By contrast, judges in civil cases do sometimes award “punitive damages” to express the court’s disapprobation for a wrongdoer’s outrageous conduct. Unlike regular damages, which seek to compensate a victim, the focus of punitive damages is to punish the wrongdoer (still by additional payment to the victim). Punitive damages serve the objectives of “retribution, deterrence, and denunciation.”
Other Punishments
In assessing punitive damages, the court must consider other punishments that were imposed for the same misconduct.
In the Badreddine case, the court was of the view that it should not second-guess the penalty imposed by the judge who sentenced the employer following his guilty plea in criminal court. The court reasoned that the criminal sentencing judge was “in the best position to deal with issues of retribution, deterrence, and denunciation.”
Accordingly, the court awarded no additional compensation for punitive damages, notwithstanding the extreme nature of this employer misconduct.
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