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Class-action settlement for WestJet female flight attendants temporarily stalled by B.C. court
A settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by 3,500 WestJet female flight attendants has been temporarily stalled by a B.C Supreme Court judge after she insisted the attendants get more time to consider the proposed agreement, which releases the airline from liability.
The long-running lawsuit alleges WestJet breached its contract with its female flight attendants by failing to implement and maintain an adequate anti-harassment program. The time-period covered by the suit is April 4, 2016 to Feb. 28, 2021.
Under the proposed agreement, the company is to pay $4.5 million to class members, but it has not admitted any liability.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Hughes opened the latest round in the lawsuit on Wednesday by expressing concern that class members only had three days to review the settlement terms before deciding whether to agree. The usual amount of time is 30 days, Hughes said.
The parties negotiated the agreement through a mediator in December.
An unofficial version of it was emailed to current and former flight attendants involved in the suit on Jan. 16. That version did not contain the clause releasing WestJet from liability, a key issue for the few attendants who objected.
Meanwhile, Justice Hughes pressed WestJet’s lawyers on the issue of third-party oversight of its anti-harassment policies.
“One of the important purposes of class proceedings is behaviour modification and I’m not certain how effective what’s proposed here will be in terms of behaviour modification, if it’s solely at WestJet’s election who to hire and to take the results and simply do whatever it wishes with them … I’m not sure how that facilitates accountability,” she said.
Another issue raised by Hughes was a lack of clarity around whether WestJet employees such as pilots could still be sued for sexual harassment under the terms of the agreement.
Class members now have until March 23 to review the agreement and file objections. The parties will be back in court on May 7.
In December 2024, Justice Hughes ruled that WestJet had been slow and “potentially adversarial” regarding the documents. She noted WestJet had handed over 24 harassment complaints, but the company’s own “internal statistics” indicated there were “significantly more” during that period. The airline was ordered to produce all harassment complaints between April 4, 2014, and February 28, 2021, regardless of whom they were for or against.
WestJet was ordered to produce the complaints within the next 45 days.
The original lawsuit in this case was filed back in 2016 by a former WestJet flight attendant who alleged she was sexually assaulted by a pilot while on a layover in Hawaii in 2010. It was certified as a class action in 2022 after more women came forward.
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