Heuze v. Chaput, 2025 BCHRT 138
Date Issued: June 11, 2025
File: CS-005372
Indexed as: Heuze v. Chaput, 2025 BCHRT 138
IN THE MATTER OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CODE,
RSBC 1996, c. 210 (as amended)
AND IN THE MATTER of a complaint before
the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal
BETWEEN:
Martin Heuze
COMPLAINANT
AND:
Joe Chaput
RESPONDENT
REASONS FOR DECISION
APPLICATION TO DISMISS A COMPLAINT
Section 27(1)(c)
Tribunal Member: Devyn Cousineau
On his own behalf: Martin Heuze
Counsel for the Respondent: Alina Nikolaeva
I INTRODUCTION
[1] In this decision, I explain why I am dismissing Martin Heuze’s human rights complaint.
[2] On October 15, 2021, Mr. Heuze went to Joe Chaput’s business (a cheese store) to buy some cheese. At that time, the store required customers to wear a face covering to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Mr. Heuze says he could not wear a mask because he has claustrophobia and wearing a mask or a face shield causes him distress. He says that Mr. Chaput confronted him and told him to leave the store. He says he explained he had a medical condition and offered to use his “hoodie hat" to cover his face, but Mr. Chaput was unwilling to listen to him. He says that he was denied a service because of his disability, in violation of s. 8 of the Human Rights Code.
[3] Mr. Chaput denies discriminating. He says that he asked Mr. Heuze to leave the store based on the provincial mandate and his store’s policy. He says that Mr. Heuze had several other options for shopping, including standing outside while an employee retrieved his items and/or shopping online. He argues that the complaint has no reasonable prospect of success and asks that it be dismissed under s. 27(1)(c) of the Code.
[4] For the following reasons, the complaint is dismissed.
II Decision
[5] Mr. Chaput applies to dismiss Mr. Heuze’s complaint on the basis that it has no reasonable prospect of success: Code, s. 27(1)(c). The onus is on Mr. Chaput to establish the basis for dismissal.
[6] The Tribunal does not make findings of fact under s. 27(1)(c). Instead, the Tribunal looks at the evidence to decide whether “there is no reasonable prospect that findings of fact that would support the complaint could be made on a balance of probabilities after a full hearing of the evidence”: Berezoutskaia v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2006 BCCA 95 at para. 22, leave to appeal ref’d [2006] SCCA No. 171. The Tribunal must base its decision on the materials filed by the parties, and not on speculation about what evidence may be filed at the hearing: University of British Columbia v. Chan, 2013 BCSC 942 at para. 77.
[7] A dismissal application is not the same as a hearing: Lord v. Fraser Health Authority, 2021 BCSC 2176 at para. 20; SEPQA v. Canadian Human Rights Commission, [1989] 2 SCR 879 at 899. The threshold to advance a complaint to a hearing is low. In a dismissal application, a complainant does not have to prove their complaint or show the Tribunal all the evidence they may introduce at a hearing. They only have to show that the evidence takes their complaint out of the realm of conjecture: Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal v. Hill, 2011 BCCA 49 at para. 27.
[8] To prove his complaint at a hearing, Mr. Heuze will have to prove that: he has a disability that prevented him from wearing a mask while he was in Mr. Chaput’s store, and he was denied a service in connection with that disability: Moore v. British Columbia (Education), 2012 SCC 61 at para. 33. In my view, there is no reasonable prospect, based on the materials before me, that Mr. Heuze will prove the elements of his complaint.
[9] The only information that Mr. Heuze has presented about his inability to wear a mask is the statement in his complaint form that “I am claustrophobic and wearing a mask or a face shield causes me great health distress”. He has not pointed to any evidence capable of proving that, because of claustrophobia, he could not wear a face mask for the brief period of time required to shop in the store. Rather, he says that he proposed to cover his face with a “hat hoodie”, which he argues “would have been perfectly acceptable way of covering my face”. He does not explain why, because of his disability, he was able to cover his face with a hat hoodie and not a face mask.
[10] The Tribunal dealt with a similar claim in Bott (by Dahlgren) v. Buy-Low Foods LP dba AG Foods, 2024 BCHRT 50. In that case, the complainant submitted evidence that he had been medically diagnosed with claustrophobia, and he would “struggle to wear a mask or shield”. Despite this evidence, the Tribunal found that the complaint had no reasonable prospect of success, explaining:
This Tribunal has found that “any claim of disability discrimination arising from a requirement to wear a mask must begin by establishing that the complainant has a disability that interferes with their ability to wear the mask”: Ratchford v. Creatures Pet Store, 2021 BCHRT 157; The Customer v. The Store, 2021 BCHRT 39 at para. 14. My understanding of claustrophobia, based on definitions in various dictionaries, is that it is a fear of being in small or narrow or closed spaces. Wearing a face covering is not synonymous with being in a small space. Respectfully, both medical notes are vague, and on their own, do not explain how Mr. Bott’s claustrophobia would impact his ability wear a mask. It is not sufficient for to simply say that Mr. Bott is claustrophobic and therefore would “struggle to wear a mask or shield.” It was incumbent on Mr. Bott to explain his particular disability-related need. [at para. 25]
[11] The same situation applies here. It is not enough for Mr. Heuze to say he has claustrophobia and could not wear a mask. It was incumbent on him to explain how the claustrophobia impacted his ability to wear a mask for a brief shopping period. He has not. I am not allowed to speculate about what evidence Mr. Heuze might present in a hearing. Based on the material before me, he has no reasonable prospect of proving that he faced a disability-related adverse impact in Mr. Chaput’s business.
[12] Even if I had found that Mr. Heuze had raised the elements of his complaint out of a realm of conjecture, I would have dismissed the complaint because Mr. Chaput is reasonably certain to justify the adverse impact: Purdy v. Douglas College and others, 2016 BCHRT 117 at para. 50. There is no dispute that Mr. Chaput adopted the mask rule during the COVID-19 pandemic in an honest and good faith belief it was necessary to comply with provincial mandates and WorkSafeBC guidelines: British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) v. British Columbia (Council of Human Rights), [1999] 3 SCR 868 [Grismer] at para. 20. There is also no dispute that the store offered customers other options to purchase cheese, including store employees shopping for customers who could not enter; online and telephone ordering; and curbside pickup.
[13] Mr. Heuze argues that these options were not presented to him. Mr. Chaput has submitted evidence that: the store has offered online shopping since at least 2017; internal policy required staff to offer customers the option of waiting outside and calling in an order to prepare; and the store posted a message on Facebook explaining alternatives to in person shopping. In light of this evidence, Mr. Chaput is reasonably certain to prove that the store did offer alternative options. In my view, the issue of whether or not Mr. Heuze was aware of these options is not material because of his position that the only way to buy the store’s specialized products was to go inside the shop. In this situation, he says that alternatives to in-person shopping were not reasonable accommodations.
[14] Respectfully, I cannot agree that these options were not reasonable accommodation. The Tribunal has consistently held that, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, options for online or curbside shopping were reasonable accommodations for customers who could not enter a store: see e.g. Coelho v. Lululemon Athletica Canada Inc., 2021 BCHRT 156. I am not persuaded that different principles should apply to a cheese shop.
III CONCLUSION
[15] I acknowledge that Mr. Heuze is upset by the way in which Mr. Chaput handled this interaction. I cannot make findings in this decision about what exactly happened that day, and I do not need to. The Tribunal only deals with complaints about discrimination based on certain protected characteristics. In this case, Mr. Heuze has no reasonable prospect of proving that Mr. Chaput discriminated against him based on a disability. Even if he could, Mr. Chaput is reasonably certain to prove a defence. The complaint is dismissed under s. 27(1)(c) of the Code.
Devyn Cousineau
Vice Chair