His employer and the Canadian Union of Professional and Technical Employees (CUPTE) had entered into a collective agreement which provided to employees up to four days bereavement leave upon the death of a member of their "immediate family".

By way of relief, Adjudicator Ateheson ordered that the day Mossop took off to attend the funeral be designated, as a day of bereavement leave, that the docking of a day's vacation from his total holiday credits be restored, that each of the Treasury Board and CUPTE pay Mossop $250 for the damage done to his feelings and self-respect, that each cease to apply the bereavement leave provisions of the collective agreement insofar as they do not allow leave to persons in homosexual relationships who would otherwise meet the conditions of the relevant articles, and finally, that the collective agreement be amended so that the definition of common-law spouse (which governed the entire contract) not be restricted to heterosexual couples.