A woman who once practiced law in northeastern B.C. has been granted an absolute discharge from bankruptcy by a Prince George-based B.C. Supreme Court master.
In giving the reasons for his decision, issued Thursday, Master Douglas Baker found the woman, identified as A.G., did her best to pay off her debts but became a casualty of the Great Recession and her own mental health issues.
When she made her assignment into bankruptcy in September 2012, she listed her unsecured debts at $116,100, of which $111,573 were proven. Of that, she owed the Royal Bank $50,964 from her line of credit and $39,375 in unpaid government student loans.
When she entered law school in 2005, she had no apparent medical issues and, after being advised she should concentrate on getting higher grades over summer or part-time employment, she graduated with distinction in 2008, but "just in time to watch the business economy fall into rapid decline."
After several attempts to secure jobs in Quebec and Ontario, she eventually found an articling position at a small firm in northeastern B.C. and economized by living in the local college students' residence.
As part of the process of becoming fully employed as a lawyer, she was obliged to spend three months in the Lower Mainland to complete an articling course. That was when her first bout of psychiatric problems emerged.
The trouble led to the deferral of an articling exam and an extension of the time to complete the program, which delayed her effort to become a full-fledged lawyer. But in December 2010, she was called to the bar and she was given her first position as junior associate counsel, at a starting monthly salary of $4,000 plus a bonus depending on billings.
But she rarely achieved the bonus and in May 2011 her psychiatric health declined. She took a three-month leave and when she returned to work, the bonus part of her salary was removed. She worked until April 2012 when she was hospitalized due to her declining mental health and in June 2012 she was terminated from the position.
She was subsequently unemployed for seven months and assigned for bankruptcy. In May 2013, she found a job with the federal government in a very remote northern location but her mental health, again, went into serious decline.
"Not managing her health sufficiently while there, she worked extreme hours and swung between extremes: sleeping excessively for a period, then going sleepless for days, or binge-eating, then starving herself," Baker said. "It was behaviour that gave concern to her supervisor and co-workers."
In September 2014 she was hospitalized, first in her community for a week and then in southern Manitoba for a longer period. She remains unemployed, relying on medical employment insurance that will end in January.
"Short term disability is not available to her, and establishment of any long term disability benefits would apparently take a long time to achieve," Baker said. "In short, at present and for the immediately foreseeable future, she is in dire financial straits."
Although her bankruptcy trustee supported her discharge, the Royal Bank did not, maintaining that she is not an "unfortunate debtor."
Baker disagreed, and accepted "without reservation" that she suffered genuine and significant misfortune that cannot be attributed to her or to decisions she has made.
"She can no more be held accountable for her illness than can a flu victim; perhaps less, when one thinks of it, because a person can be inoculated for influenza or can avoid others infected with the virus," Baker said. "I am unaware of any available inoculation for mental illness or psychiatric difficulties."
Baker said he also inferred from two letters provided by her physician that she needs to live in a larger centre to receive adequate medical care and it is possible the northern locale and her work there contribute to her condition.
"Her physician has recommended that she not return to that locale, and that she change the nature of her legal employment to a less stressful form of work. I think that those recommendations are sound," Baker said.
