RCMP Constable Michael Desson experienced a seizure in 2010 and was diagnosed with focal epilepsy. He was moved away from operational policing while the RCMP applied a policy that generally required an officer with epilepsy to remain seizure free for five years before returning to operational duties.
Desson eventually returned to operational work roughly six weeks before the five year point. He nevertheless pursued a human rights complaint, alleging disability discrimination because the restriction had kept him from operational assignments and overtime opportunities.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found prima facie discrimination but dismissed the complaint after accepting the RCMP rule as a bona fide occupational requirement. Desson sought judicial review.
The Federal Court found the Tribunal’s analysis unreasonable. The key problem was accommodation. The Tribunal focused heavily on the RCMP’s efforts to place Desson in administrative work. That did not answer the harder question of whether he could have performed some operational duties safely through individualized restrictions or a modified medical profile.
Under the human rights framework, accommodation is not an afterthought once a discriminatory standard has been accepted. It forms part of deciding whether the standard is reasonably necessary in the first place. The employer must show that the affected worker could not be accommodated within or through adjustment of the standard without undue hardship.
The Court also found a problem with the one percent seizure risk threshold that supported the five year rule. The Tribunal had relied on that threshold without adequately asking whether the threshold itself was reasonably necessary. A safety sensitive workplace can justify rigorous standards, but the existence of risk does not remove the need to examine why a particular level of risk was chosen and whether individualized assessment is possible.
The medical evidence created another concern. The Tribunal relied heavily on witnesses whose evidence supported the recurrence risk assumptions, but it did not properly address Desson’s objection that those witnesses had not been qualified as experts.
The Federal Court allowed the application, set aside the Tribunal decision and sent the complaint back to a different Tribunal decision maker. Desson was awarded $2,500 in costs.
For HR teams, the practical significance is that safety and accommodation must be analyzed together. A blanket rule may be easier to administer, but ease of administration is not the legal test. Where modified duties, tailored restrictions or individual medical assessment may be possible, those possibilities have to be examined seriously.
The decision is Desson v. Canada (Attorney General), 2026 FC 1169.