Lake Country RV park to pay $11,700 in unpaid wages after verbal agreement turns sour

A Lake Country RV park, that came to “some degree of a verbal agreement” with a couple who worked there for free housing, has been let off the hook for $5,600, but still has to pay $11,700 in unpaid wages.

The recently published Nov. 25 BC Employment Standards Tribunal ruling confirmed the award after an earlier appeal about whether the gardening work the couple did was voluntary or not.

The case involves an unnamed couple who entered into a “labour for housing” barter arrangement with Lake Country RV Park, Tuscany Orchard, for the 2021 season.

The couple did maintenance and landscaping in exchange for free housing in what the Tribunal described as an agreement that was “haphazardly documented” with the owner, Margaret Churchill.

It’s unclear what took place, but somewhere along the way the relationship broke down and the couple were evicted.

They later took Churchill to the Employment Standards Tribunal, which ruled they were owed $17,372 in unpaid wages. The RV park was also fined $3,500.

However, Churchill appealed, saying the gardening work the couple did was voluntary, and they got to keep the veggies that they produced.

The Tribunal ruled Employment Standards shouldn’t have awarded the couple wages for work in the veggie garden, but instead of making a final ruling, it sent the matter back to be argued again.

To make matters more complicated, the timesheet the couple used to record their own hours had been destroyed by them after they filed their complaint.

The Tribunal found the couple had burned the record deliberately, and as one of them was a former lawyer, they should have been “particularly sensitive to the need to preserve relevant evidence.”

The couple argued they had put together a summary of their gardening hours, but the Tribunal excluded it.

The decision references a 173-page investigation into the matter, and said some of the couple’s evidence was “problematic, at least to a degree.”

After parsing through the evidence and the various appeals, the Tribunal ruled that the work the couple did in the garden did not constitute compensatable “work.”

However, the Tribunal decision still leaves the RV park to pay the couple $11,740 plus interest for unpaid wages, vacation pay and statutory holiday pay.

The ruling comes four and a half years after the couple moved out.