Judge calls out WestJet for trying to muzzle customer 2:28 Min. by CBC News, March 31, 2025
In a ruling that air passenger advocates say could change how airlines settle disputes, a judge criticized WestJet for insisting a customer sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to receive a refund.
@ema2ca.bsky.social:
NDAs are a corruption and abomination on society that allow (most often) the accused to silence important information, IMO.
And in my view, rape the public interest, yet look how many lawyers push them on their clients, even those that stated from day one of retaining counsel they would never sign a gag, for obvious reasons – they are grossly unfair and UNJUST!
ableg #abpoli #cdnpoli #ablaw #CorruptCare
@brigidbh.bsky.social:
‘Beware of seniors with a lot of time on their hands’. [Laughing emoji]
Seriously, the NDAs are a bullying tactic by large businesses on the little guy. Good ruling. Westjet’s management sure has gone downhill since it got bought by private equity.
@trishly.bsky.social:
This buying silence has to stop ~ Andrew Douglas
Well done!!!
Ontario judge condemns WestJet’s attempt to include gag order in settlement offer, WestJet claims use of non-disclosure agreements ‘fundamental’ to reaching solution by Erica Johnson and Ana Komnenic, CBC News, Mar 31, 2025
Andrew Douglas says he was just fighting for compensation when he took WestJet to small claims court — instead, the dispute has resulted in what’s believed to be a landmark decision that can now be pointed to by all air travel passengers battling it out with the airlines.
“Beware of seniors, they have a lot of time on their hands,” the 72-year-old Ottawa man told Go Public, referring to the fact that his dispute with WestJet began more than three years ago.
In her decision on costs earlier this month, the judge condemned WestJet’s insistence that Douglas sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to get compensation the airline owed him after he was incorrectly not allowed to board a flight to Cuba.
Nobody in Canada tracks how often NDAs are used, but experts in the airline industry say imposing confidentiality clauses in settlement offers is an increasingly common tactic, which is why this recent decision is so important.
An advocate for air passengers says the decision sends an important directive to the airline industry.
“Finally, a judge calls out an airline for trying to gag passengers,” said Gábor Lukács, founder and president of the Air Passenger Rights group.
“That is a stern warning … they cannot get away with it.”
How it began
Douglas’s tale began on Jan. 31, 2022, at the Ottawa airport.
He was headed to Cuba — a country he travels to regularly, visiting friends and bringing supplies to people in need, like the medicine he brought with him on a trip in January.
“I brought a lot of acetaminophen and ibuprofen because that’s hard to find,” he said.
In a ruling that air passenger advocates say could change how airlines settle disputes, a judge criticized WestJet for insisting a customer sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to receive a refund.
But a WestJet agent told him — incorrectly — that he wasn’t allowed to check in, because he couldn’t provide proof of a recent negative Covid test.
Douglas knew the regulations had recently changed, so he’d brought with him a printed page from the website of the Cuba Tourist Board of Canada, clearly stating that no Covid test was required for Canadians going to Cuba.
But neither the WestJet agent nor a supervisor who was called in would listen when Douglas pleaded his case, or check the website themselves.
The real burn, said Douglas, was that WestJet refused to refund his $410 ticket — offering instead to refund his baggage fees and give him a credit to take a later trip with the airline.
“I don’t want flyer points,” said Douglas. “I am not flying WestJet again.”
Turned away at the airport, he returned home and sent the airline a request for a refund via a registered demand letter — a formal, written request, asking the company to fulfil a legal obligation before he potentially took legal action.
WestJet did not reply, so Douglas felt he had no option but to file in small claims court.
“Who was ever going to believe that an airline would simply turn a passenger away for no good reason?” he said.
Because he had no legal background, Douglas headed to the Ottawa public library and found a book written by a former small claims court judge, explaining how a member of the public can take a case to court.
He also relied on information provided to him by Lukács, of Air Passenger Rights.
He filed his case in March 2022.
WestJet asks for gag order
Five months later, Douglas received an email from WestJet, offering to pay $790 in compensation for his airfare and another flight he missed because he couldn’t take the trip. But the offer came with a hitch — the requirement that he sign an NDA — so Douglas declined the offer.Bravo!
Before a small claims case goes to court, there’s a settlement conference — where both sides try to come to an agreement before a judge, potentially avoiding a trial.
At that hearing, WestJet again offered Douglas a refund of $790 and again required he sign an NDA — so once again, he turned down the offer.
WestJet made two more offers, slightly increasing the amount of the refund each time, but still requiring that Douglas keep silent. So he turned those down, too.
One week before the trial was set to begin, WestJet upped its offer again — to $1,298 — still requiring a gag order and warning Douglas that there would likely be consequences if he lost in court.
“Should you choose not to accept this offer and proceed unnecessarily to trial, we expect to receive instructions from our client to seek penalties and costs against you,” wrote Anika Garlick, the lawyer for WestJet.Douche! NDAs, gags, confidentiality agreements for cases of harm by corporations/governments against citizens must be made illegal!
Still, Douglas refused to settle.
“It’s not about the money. It’s the point of the argument,” he said. “This buying silence has to stop.”
Air passenger advocate Lukács says he sees nothing wrong with people settling without going to court, as long as the offer is reasonable and, importantly, that passengers are at liberty to speak about what happened.
“Because we are talking about money that is owed to them under law,” said Lukács. “It is not a goodwill gesture. It’s not a handout … It is simply what is owed the passenger — and there should be no confidentiality whatsoever there.”
Judge condemns WestJet
In her ruling, the judge ordered WestJet to refund Douglas for his airfare and costs he incurred travelling to and from the airport and filing his lawsuit.
She also condemned WestJet for trying to impose a confidentiality clause, saying it was “problematic,” a “serious defect” and that there should not be “strings attached” to receive a “long-overdue refund.”
She wrote that WestJet would not be asking for an NDA unless there was a financial advantage to it, and that the advantage was apparently “worth the trouble and expense of a trial to the defendant not to offer settlement without it.”
“This decision sends a clear message to the airlines that if an amount is undisputed, the airline should pay it,” said Lukács.
A lawyer who has studied the use of confidentiality clauses within Canada’s air travel industry calls the decision “well-reasoned” and a win for air travel passengers.
“This decision could indeed change the way airlines litigate — and for the better,” said Paul Daly, Research Chair in Administrative Law and Governance at the University of Ottawa. “It would mean more information in the public domain.”
Douglas, who waited almost three years for his day in court, said he was pleased with the judge’s harsh criticism of WestJet’s use of an NDA.
“It’s pretty strong language,” he said. “But I feel it’s justified the way I was mistreated.”
The judge also slapped the airline with an additional $410 penalty for withholding money it owed the 72-year-old plaintiff for so long — a delay she found “particularly vexing.”
“A penalty in a lesser amount would be insufficient to deter the defendant from repeating this conduct in other cases,” she wrote, chastising WestJet for not paying up for more than two years and seven months after the start of litigation.
“Courts cannot condone hardball tactics,” wrote the judge.All the judges involved in my case sure condoned the shit hardball tactics and lies by the defendants in my case, and engaged in their own dirty hardball tactics against me, causing insane delays, and increased costs and stress, clearly unjustly serving the law violators. I’ll never forgive any of the judges for that, notably the liars on the supreme court.“Especially in circumstances where there is a power imbalance between a corporate litigant (here the second largest airline in Canada) and an individual.”
All told, the judge ordered WestJet to pay Douglas $2,118 — plus interest from day one of the dispute.
WestJet declined an interview request from Go Public.
In a statement, an airline spokesperson wrote that confidentiality clauses are “fundamental to ensuring that both parties can transparently explore both the unique circumstances and the unique solution which may be available and lead to common ground.”WTF bullshit yak is that West Jet? “Confidential transparency.” I’ll never fly on your planes again.
Douglas wants ‘denied boarding’ definition changed
Meanwhile, Douglas hopes to help strengthen other protections for air travellers.
He’s made a submission to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) regarding the definition of “denied boarding” in proposed changes to the Air Passenger Protection Regulations. As it stands, travellers can only file for “denied boarding” if they can prove a plane is overbooked (a practice also known as “bumping”).
That’s why Douglas couldn’t file a complaint about his WestJet dispute with the CTA and had to go to court — his situation wasn’t covered under the current regulations.
He wants Canada to align with the European Union’s definition of “denial of boarding” that would limit a carrier’s ability to deny compensation to passengers with a confirmed reservation only if they show up late for check-in, don’t have valid travel documents, or refuse to comply with health, safety or security requirements.
“Then in instances like mine, where you’re just wrongly refused transport, you would be compensated exactly the same as if the plane had been overbooked,” said Douglas.
The Air Passenger Rights group has also submitted to the CTA a 27-page analysis of the proposed “denied boarding” regulation — it, too, is calling for similar protections provided in Europe.
A strong message to the airline industry
Lukács says he will post Douglas’s small claims court victory on his group’s Facebook page, so others can use it to fight gag orders in disputes against airlines.And other industries!
He calls it a strong message to the entire airline industry to smarten up.
“Wasting for years the passengers’ time, the legal system’s time, judges, clerks, tens of thousands of dollars in public money for a $1,000 dispute,” Lukács said. “That is not how we want to use our public resources in Canada.”
Douglas says he’s proud to be behind a case that will likely help a lot of other frustrated airline passengers. But he says no one “in their right mind” would spend three years just to win back what they’re owed.
“Don’t go to court for money,” he said. “Go to court because they’re really treating you badly. And you deserve justice.”
Some of the comments:
Paul Maxwell:
Good for Mr. Douglas! My blood boils when I see the way big business treats the consumer. I do think, however, that the court should have generously awarded him damages for all the hours he has put into this case for almost three years. This was a good verbal dressing-down of WestJet but the financial penalty was just pocket change.
Justin Annon:
Indeed!!! But sadly courts only award costs for time spent to lawyers, i.e. to active members of the Bar Association in one’s province. This is basically a worldwide bias against non-lawyers spending time fighting their own cases, and IMO should be fixed worldwide, but at present time-spent costs to non-lawyers can only be in the form of further additional punitive damages which are almost never awarded in any cases anywhere. The judge was as firm and harsh against WestJet as she could be — even providing the plaintiff with inflationary costs of the award, which is an extremely, unusually strong message to WestJet in legal-land — without seriously risking a successful future appeal by WestJet.
Hugh MacDonald:
“Finally, a judge calls out an airline for trying to gag passengers,”
The way airlines treat passengers in this country is enough to make anyone gag
George Rooney:
There needs to be stronger controls around the use of NDAs. Companies, rapists, law societies, gov’ts, rich people, and judges should not be allowed to use them as a club to beat customers into submission.
Yep, had that happen in a dispute with A/C. An NDA was part of the offer.
Richard Fryer:
….hats off to Mr. Lukcas for persuing this claim… there are likely many legitimate, unsettled claims gone by the wayside because of the convoluted settlement process imposed on a litigant… these companies have legions of lawyers and a bottomless pit of resources to obfusicate issues and dalay the process in the hopes the claimant will just go away… and likely most do. The Canadian legal system is… it’s not the sentence that’s the punsihment… it’s the process, and as Mr. Lucas correctly points out, money flows like water in out court system. Reform is urgently needed.
David Newman:
Perhaps NDA’s should have to be registered with the Federal Government or Law Societygovt’s and law societies are major parts of the NDA problem to be enforceable. Not only would this allow the use of NDA’s to be tracked, perhaps it would reduce their use for chilling customers that speak out about companies that have FAR more legal resources.
Norm Heaad:
NDA’s used to mask the public finding out that companies are doing should be considered fraud, and interference in criminal or civil investigations. The only way to stop the nonsense is to send the lawyers who regularly encourage these practices do jail time.
Kim Moore:
The use of NDA’s should be limited. In Canada laws often change based on precedents set in other cases. NDA’s limit the information available.
Johnny Johnson:
3 FREAKING YEARS!
Jack Bell:
In a statement, an airline spokesperson wrote that confidentiality clauses are “fundamental to ensuring that both parties can transparently explore both the unique circumstances and the unique solution which may be available and lead to common ground.”
… that sentence could fertilize a thousand fields.
Neil Gregory:
It should be a criminal offence for a corporation to impose a gag order on anyone with whom they had had to settle a claim.
Refer also to:
2024: Hudbay Minerals Inc. and Guatemalan plaintiffs – represented by lawyers Cory Wanless and Murray Klippenstein – settle and gag, reportedly the settlement is without admission of liability by Hudbay. Lawyers cheer as the status quo wins yet again, raping the public interest. Where’s Lady Justice? Gagged headless.
2020: Frac’ers rape the rule of law and gag Canadian First Nations under the guise of “Benefit Agreements”
2019: Non-Disclosure Agreements “are, indeed, an ugly instrument.”
2019: Addicted to Gag: What gives with these abusive judges?
Historic radioactive radium waste storage at Ft McMurray, Alberta
2013: Harper’s Gag Orders Sweep While Canadians Sleep
2013: Canadian Government Gag Order for Scientists?
2013: Recording of Glenn Solomon, lawyer representing the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER, previously ERCB) in the Ernst vs Encana lawsuit, giving legal advice to Ann Craft’s son Brent O’Neil, about hydraulic fracturing contaminating Ann’s well water and damaging her farm buildings and home.
Glenn “You Shut Up” Solomon
For more information, refer to these articles by Andrew Nikiforuk:
The Nightmare of Ann Craft: Fracked, then Poisoned http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/12/04/Nig…
Ann Craft’s Fracking Nightmare: A Top Lawyer’s Startling Counsel http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/12/05/Ann…
2012: HYDRAULIC FRACTURING: Public disclosure database kept private
2012: Doctors fight “gag orders” over fracking chemicals
2011:
2007:
1987: