From UBC Sticker Defamation To GST Liability To Work From Home Rights

A campus sticker dispute, a GST mistake that snowballs for years, and a pre-COVID work-from-home fight all end up in the BC Court of Appeal, and the common thread is proof. We walk through a defamation claim tied to “I Heart Hamas” stickers attributed to a UBC social justice group and explain the first hurdle many people miss: whether the plaintiff is even a legal entity that can sue. When the “group” is an unincorporated association, the case shifts to an individual trying to show the publication points to him personally, and we break down how courts analyze identification in Canadian defamation law. 

Next, we dig into a small business GST problem caused by bad bookkeeping advice. We clarify the GST small supplier threshold, why you can still owe uncollected GST, and when voluntary registration can help through input tax credits. The case also highlights practical warning signs: invoices that exaggerate qualifications, vague LinkedIn claims, and the “pay me cash with no invoice” request that should make any business owner stop and reassess. 

Finally, we look at a human rights and employment accommodation claim involving a TELUS worker who wanted to work from home based on vague symptoms and a thin doctor’s note. The court’s message is blunt and useful: an employer’s duty to accommodate is judged on the medical information available at the time, not on a diagnosis that appears later. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more listeners can find these real-world legal takeaways.

Follow this link for a transcript of the show and links to the cases discussed.

Transcript

UBC Sticker Allegation And Defamation

Michael Mulligan 0:24

So this is you're quite right. It's a defamation case. It's just out of a court of appeal. And the factual background to it, this comes from uh back in 2023 and at UBC. Uh and what was alleged is the allegation is that uh a fellow who is employed by a group over there that uh his task is to promote Jewish life at UBC uh was alleged to have printed up uh some 500 stickers uh in a circular format, which read I Heart Hamas, and then UBC Social Justice Center printed on them. And apparently a hundred of them were stuck around UBC, and then some pictures were taken and put up online. And that led to this defamation claim being brought by, first of all, that UBC Social Justice Center against the person that they alleged put up these stickers, um, and also uh an individual there who was associated with that social justice center who was had sort of a public role in it as a coordinator. Now, the first thing about the case, which is notable, it's I think generally an important principle, is who can sue. Uh, and the first problem for the UBC Social Justice Center is that that organization is described as an unincorporated association, like just a group of people. Uh, it it caused me to think about uh those of us who might be familiar with the Monty Python quest for the Holy Grail and the scene involving the constitutional peasants who describe themselves as an autonomous collective when confronted by the king. That is the constitutional peasant. Yeah, yeah. So the problem with that is that I an autonomous collective or an unincorporated association isn't a legal entity that can sue on its own behalf. It's just a glob of people, right? Yeah. Uh and sort of globs of people can't sue. And you can imagine the problem if globs of people could sue, you would arrive, you would have issues like, well, the glob of people was awarded some money. Who gets it? Or the glob of people sued somebody unsuccessfully, who's paying the costs? Everyone would just scatter into the wilderness, right? Um, and so this entity, the Social Justice Center, unincorporated, uh, apparently had some 12 coordinators, no board of directors, 30 active members, uh, and you know, it was just a glob. Uh, and so that entity uh discontinued

Why Unincorporated Groups Cannot Sue

Michael Mulligan 2:55

uh its defamation claim uh uh a year or so, it looks like after it was started, on the basis that you just can't sue as a glob. Uh but that left this individual who was one of the uh people described as a coordinator for the Autonomous Collective, uh, and the coordinator sued on the basis that um even though uh he didn't have some official role, there was no board of directors, the person wasn't identified, for example, as uh some position like uh meaningful position, I don't think, on a website or anything to do with this collective, uh, that he is somebody who had made uh like uh speeches and done sort of forward-facing things for the Justice Center uh group. Uh and so uh he alleged that uh people would who were familiar with him uh would have reasonably concluded that the sticker, which the there was agreement that a reasonable person could conclude that it was intended to convey the idea that members of this uh social justice center supported a terrorist organization, which uh could uh cause reputational damage. Uh and so the the claim he made was, well, hey, if somebody knew me and was familiar with us, they would conclude that the IHart Hamas referencing this collective or justice center would have concluded that meant him. Um and so uh that was how his claim was advanced. Now, uh at the sort of before the thing could get to trial, uh the defendant, who's alleged to have made these stickers and put them up, which which would be a publication, that's sort of a requirement for a defamation claim, uh brought an application under the Public Participation Act. It's like that act intended to prevent lawsuits being brought, often by like big companies or whatever, to discourage people from you know engaging in uh expression on matters of public interest. And so where you can establish that the pro the proceeding, the defamation claim, uh involved an expression made by uh somebody, which was an expression relating to a matter of public interest. And I think there was it was agreed that uh what was going on with Hamas and the uh attack in Israel and so on was that, was a matter of social interest. Then at that point, unless you could establish that, that

Anti-SLAPP Test And Identifying A Plaintiff

Michael Mulligan 5:10

is to say, the plaintiff can establish that the claim has substantial merit, like a real prospect of success, then a judge can dismiss the claim uh at an early stage, and that's to avoid, you know, like big companies being able to just bully people around by suing them, uh, and then you know, potentially running up legal costs and so on that would make it uh such that people would be afraid to comment on matters of public interest. And so the judge concluded that uh the claim did not have substantial merit on the basis that um you know wouldn't be connected to this person, the remaining person suing, uh because that person could maintain a claim, unlike the autonomous collective. Uh and so uh the claim was struck out by the trial judge, uh, and that led to this appeal to the Court of Appeal, where the uh plaintiff, the remaining plaintiff, uh argued that the judge had applied the wrong test by allegedly uh assessing whether uh a reasonable and informed person would conclude uh that this sticker related to him rather than a person who is familiar uh with him, right? Uh and you you can appreciate how that could be so, right? I mean, let's say, for example, somebody alleges that some dastardly thing had been done by, I don't know, the uh, you know, a something which was clearly identified with a person, right? That's a different thing from, you know, hey, if I know that person, I know that's really who it refers to. But the Court of Appeal looked carefully at all the things the judge said, including the judge's references to earlier cases that involved the correct test in terms of a person familiar with the individual, and concluded that the judge had not made a mistake and applied the wrong test. Uh, that uh while it's true that these things could uh uh be defamatory in the sense of uh you know connecting somebody to a terrorist organization, uh it was not enough to connect this particular person, one of some, whatever it was, twelve coordinators uh as being who they were directed at. Uh and so the claim was dismissed, the appeal was dismissed. Now,

Appeal Result And No Costs Awarded

Michael Mulligan 7:15

on the other hand, the uh judge also uh did not award costs to either side. And usually you get costs if you're the party that succeeds, right? That's to discourage meritless claims. Yes. But here the judge exercised discretion saying, hey, what you did here was in fact defamatory, but with respect to an entity that can't sue you, because it's not really a legal entity, uh, and so the judge exercised their discretion not to award costs, and despite the appeal and an appeal of that issue, um the uh court of appeal uh refused to uh overturn the decision to allow both of these people to bear their own costs. That's the later so the Court of Appeal on some of those important issues, including what kind of an entity can sue uh and how that's uh to be assessed in the case of uh claim of definitions.

Adam Stirling 8:03

Michael Mulligan with Mulligan Defense Lawyers

Bad GST Advice For Small Business

Adam Stirling 8:05

legally speaking will continue right after that. As we continue legally speaking right now for the moment, though, with Michael Mulligan from Mulligan Defense Lawyers. It says a bookkeeper 50% liable for advertising IDST didn't need to be collected for several years. What happened?

Michael Mulligan 8:22

Uh well, some bad advice is what happened. Uh and the background of it is that the claimant, who is described as somebody who operated several small businesses as sole proprietorships, like that's kind of on your own accord, right? Not incorporated, um, hired the defendant to act as a bookkeeper uh for a number of years. The time in question was 2018 to 2022. And the claim was based on advice uh received from the uh person who was doing the bookkeeping, uh, who advised the uh claimant uh that she did not need to charge GST unless she uh earned more than thirty thousand dollars each quarter. Uh and that's wrong, by the way, for listeners. Okay. Um and in fact that the general requirement uh is that if you are earning thirty thousand dollars sales in any twor quarters, like any year, right, on a rolling basis, then you would be required to register and you're required to charge GST on the sale that puts you over the limit. Some people, by the way, are required to register immediately, like taxi drivers, Uber drivers, rideshare drivers, limousine operators, and some others have to register from day one as mandatory, so don't miss that wrinkle. Uh the other thing to know is that you can voluntarily register as a GST registrant even if you don't go over that threshold. And some people would be well advised to do that because it allows you to claim back what are called input tax credits, like the GST you paid on things for the businesses, like st business, like stock you might buy or like equipment for your business, for example. And so, like a business in the early days might actually just get refunds of GST they paid. So it's something you'd want to get some good advice about from somebody who knows what they're doing. Well, here uh the person did not know what they were doing, uh, and that led to this uh eventually when the uh person wound up with a new, actually qualified accountant, uh, it was determined that uh she had not filed GST when she was required to, and so she had to file and pay twelve thousand six hundred and seventy-seven dollars in uncollected GST because she's still liable for it, whether she did it correctly or not, right? The new accountant realized that, hey, you didn't done this to get it done. And so she did it and then sued this person. And that led to the issue about, first of all, what was the role of this person? Um and the uh it was somewhat ambiguous, and it led to the judge looking at things like the LinkedIn postings of this person who was doing the bookkeeping, uh, where she uh had kind of uh uh uh ambiguous descriptions of herself, like she didn't indicate she had a license or that she was a certified bookkeeper or an accountant, but did describe, for example, experience doing things like, quote, responsible for accounting and clerical support uh for a particular place, bookkeeping, payroll, administration, uh, and claimed to have done accounting courses from an unknown institution at an unknown time. Uh and so that was kind of ambiguous. And then the judge looked at, and this was quite important, the invoices that this person had given to the bookkeeper had given to the small business person. Uh and those were quite significant because they included invoices for things like 2020 business accounting book review and twenty hours of annual bookkeeping and bank statement consolidation, and described herself as a quote, accountant for small business, which she most certainly was not. Uh and uh I must say

Holding Out As An Accountant

Michael Mulligan 11:55

the other thing which I found amusing in the description is two of the years involved, there were no invoices because she wanted to be paid in cash. And I must tell you, there's a red flag when your bookkeeper or accountant does not want to render an invoice and wishes to be paid in cash. That may be a bit of a red flag for you in terms of who is doing your bookkeeping for you. Uh and so the judge found that this woman had overstated her qualifications on these invoices, holding herself out to be a quote, accountant for small business, which is not a thing. An accountant is a thing. Uh, and uh I must say the cash payments and no invoices for a couple years were quite troubling on its own. Yeah. Uh ironically, that might have produced a uh a GST credit if there was an invoice you could reduce your GST liability by, but that's by the by. Um and so the judge had to then go on and assess, first of all, whether that amounted to negligence. Uh what happened here, this uh advice that was received. Uh and when you have somebody who's clearly acting as a professional, like an actual accountant or a lawyer or a doctor or somebody, right? Just acting in a professional capacity, the way that would be approached is you would you would owe a duty of care to the plaintiff, right, virtually by definition. And then you would look at like the standard of care, which would be like a reasonable accountant, lawyer, doctor, whatever it might be. Uh, and then you would look at whether a person fell below that and whether they were you know the injury or loss was foreseeable, and then what the actual damages were that occurred. Now, the challenge here is that this woman wasn't really a professional of any kind. Um, you know, she was sort of a kind of held herself out to be that, made that representation in the invoices when she did produce invoices. Uh, but ultimately the way the judge approached it was to say, look, this person wasn't really a professional, and so that wasn't really a matter of professional negligence, it was more in the sort of simple negligence sort of category. Um, and on on that basis found that uh it was uh so egregious when she was holding herself out to be an accountant, particularly in a couple of those years, that it obviously fell short in the judge's view of the standard of care expected of anyone. Uh right, you holding herself out to to be that. And so found that she was uh in breach of that uh the standard of care that would apply to her. Now, that wasn't the complete end to it, uh, because the the other thing that the judge had to assess is whether the business person who hired this woman uh shared any responsibility for what happened. Um and it found in fact the judge found that she did. Uh she found that the uh businessperson was negligent in hiring her in the first place to do these things uh without making some further inquiries about her ability or lack of qualifications. For example, when you looked at her LinkedIn profile, you know, the hey, I took some kind of an accounting course somewhere, it's unclear where, you know, I went to some school, it was is uncle or said she went to some school, but not what kind of degree she got, and found that there was some responsibility on her, that is to say, the employ you know, the small business person who is employing this individual, uh, to make further inquiries about the qualifications and some of the uh inquiries

Shared Fault And GST Takeaways

Michael Mulligan 15:05

about the GST liability, and so found that they were each responsible, both of them, uh, for what happened, and so assigned 50% responsibility for each of them, the wisdom of Solomon, right? Uh and so at the end of the day, the judge ordered that this woman, holding herself out, at least on the invoices, to be the small business accountant and providing this advice uh was that she would be responsible for half of what was enclected. So some $6,011.58 was the final upshot. But the the takeaways there are both both, first of all, what I talked about in terms of that general obligation to be aware of if you're um you know selling things, get some good advice about whether you are required to register, because if you don't, that doesn't eliminate your responsibility. It just racks up for all of that uh what you should have been collecting, and you could be responsible for years in the past. And if you didn't do what the actual accountant did, you could also wind up with a bunch of penalties for like failing to do it. So get good advice. It is a nuanced area, uh, and there could be some uh big dollars involved.

Adam Stirling 16:05

Absolutely. Four minutes left. Our final story. It's a it's it's a little of a human rights claim for not permitting

TELUS Work From Home Human Rights Claim

Adam Stirling 16:10

a TELUS employee to work from home in Stanichton. What happened? So this is interesting.

Michael Mulligan 16:16

It's somebody a little bit before her time, I guess. The fact pattern came out of 2018, and it was a person who had these sort of various uh employment contracts with this TELUS entity, um, and she uh uh alleged that she began to have various kind of vague health symptoms, uh which she believed flared up, quote unquote, at work, uh, claiming that she and she believed that she had had a allergic reaction to something in her work building. Uh the cla the symptoms uh were uh things like uh being fatigued, having poor sleep, low mood, brain fog, leg movements, and cramps, uh which she said seemed to worsen at work. Uh and so she applied for permission to be allowed to work from home pre-COVID, I guess. Um and the TELUS entity um indicated that uh first of all they needed some medical documentation about these things, uh uh because she didn't meet the criteria that they had for allowing somebody to work at home, some kind of performance standards. And so they wanted some medical uh basis for this request. Um and the uh note that she wound up getting from the uh doctor uh initially was quite vague. Um it said this for health reasons, a trial of work from home is recommended, right? Without any diagnosis or anything else, just well, recommend you try this. And of course, many doctors' notes are nothing more than a person showing up telling their doctor, hey, by the way, my back is sore, and the doctor writes down reported bad back, right? Yeah. Um and so uh with that, the employer said, No, you you can't do that, and then the woman just stopped coming in and brought a human rights complaint, alleging that she'd been discriminated against based on her uh physical uh health and mental health. Um and uh that the human rights tribunal eventually, and I should say those things can be time-consuming and expensive processes, but eventually the human rights tribunal dismissed the woman's claim on the basis that there just wasn't a satisfactory um, you know, basis for there to be a medical problem at the time this application was made. Um and the woman didn't accept that. She appealed it, first of all, to the BC Supreme Court and then off to the Court of Appeal. Um, and so no doubt a very expensive and time-consuming legal process altogether. Uh, but ultimately the Court of Appeal concluded, and I should say this, eventually, after all of that water had gone under the bridge, uh the woman managed to get some form of a medical uh diagnosis to put some terminology to this collection of vague symptoms. Uh but the Court of Appeal uh and all of the various

Accommodation Depends On Evidence At Time

Michael Mulligan 19:00

uh eventually concluded that uh an employer doesn't have an obligation to accommodate um things which might eventually wind up with some diagnosis. You need to uh make a the assessment is whether uh based on what information they had at the time, in this case sort of a belief of allergic reactions to something vaguely in the workplace, and that note from the doctor that I mentioned, um, was not the sort of information which was uh medical evidence which would cause an employer to have some obligation to start uh accommodating it, at least when that's reasonably possible. Uh and so that's an important principle to take away from this. When you're assessing whether an employer uh has met their obligation to uh accommodate a disability, uh the assessment is made based on the information available at the time, not what information might eventually come to light by some other doctor after all of that has transpired. Uh and so that's the uh latest from the Court of Appeal on the uh duty to accommodate somebody wishing to work from home.

Adam Stirling 19:59

Michael Mulligan

Closing And Weekly Segment Plug

Adam Stirling 20:00

with Mulligan Defense Awards, legally speaking, during the second half of our second hour every Thursday. Thank you so much. Pleasure as always. Thanks so much. Always great to be here. Quick break news is next.