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Please Loginto Mondaq orRegisterfor unlimited free access and a complimentary news alert Canada: Court Upholds Employer's Dismissal Of Health And Safety Manager For CauseInLagala v. Patene Building Supplies Ltd, 2024 ONSC253 (CanLII), the employee was dismissed for cause andcommenced a wrongful dismissal action against her former employer(the employer also commenced a counterclaim alleging that theemployee failed to pay back money that she had borrowed from theemployer). The employee was the Health, Safety and Training Manager for theemployer and had been employed with the employer for more than 13years. She was 53 years old when her employment was terminated forcause on December 18, 2019. The employee was terminated for hermanagement and reporting of a WSIB claim that she made on her ownbehalf. The employee alleged that she fell in the parking lot of theemployer's Brantford facility on March 28, 2019. However, theemployee did not report this accident to her supervisors untilOctober 2019. Prior to reporting the accident to her employer, theemployee had initiated a WSIB claim by completing theemployer's claim form and had received a decision granting herphysiotherapy benefits. WSIB requested that the employee have asupervisor sign off on the employer's claim form, which theemployee then sought at the end of October 2019. The employee's claim then came to the attention of thecompany's president who investigated the alleged accident andcorresponding employee WSIB claim. As a result of theinvestigation, the employer concluded that it had lost trust in theemployee and terminated her employment for cause on December 18,2019. The DecisionThe Court dismissed the employee's claim (and theemployer's counterclaim) and concluded that the employer hadcause to dismiss the employee. The Court found that there weresignificant credibility and reliability issues with the evidenceprovided by the employee. For example, the employee stated in herevidence that she was too embarrassed by the accident to report itto a supervisor but then also said that she advised anotheremployee of the incident. Furthermore, this individual said thatthe employee had never told him about the alleged accident in Marchuntil she asked him to write an email regarding the incident onOctober 24, 2019. In addition, the evidence provided at trial didnot support the employee's allegation that she had told thisindividual about her alleged fall in March of 2019. The Court found that the employee was untruthful to the companyabout reporting this incident and then attempted to conceal the lieusing her relationship with the other employee who she asked tosend the email. The Court found that the employee's failure to report thisaccident prior to October 2, 2019 was not only a breach of theemployer's policies on accident reporting but also a breach oftheWSIA . The Court further noted that employee'sdecision to report her own accident on behalf of the employer alsoput her in a conflict of interest, which the employee failed toacknowledge. On this aspect, the Court wrote: " (t)he factthat the (employee) was prepared to put herself in this conflict,while denying that it was a conflict, is a significant reason whythe (employer) was correct to have lost confidence in the(employee)" (para 77). The Court noted that the while the employee's misconductflowed from one incident, it was "...not a one-off lapse injudgment. Instead, the (employee) engaged in a continuing patternof attempting to hide her failure to report the alleged accident toher employer. The (employee) compounded her misconduct by suborning... a lower-level employee, to help her cover up her failure toreport the alleged accident in a timely manner" (para 82). The Court further elaborated that the "... employee'smisconduct, and her dishonesty when confronted with thatmisconduct, irretrievably destroyed her ability to carry out heremployment responsibilities. Put simply, an employer cannot beexpected to employ a Health and Safety manager who does not complywith health and safety policies when those policies affect her, andthen is dishonest with her employer about what happened after thefact" (para 85). Key Takeaways for EmployersThis case is a welcome decision for employers and demonstrates acircumstance where an employee's misconduct warranted thetermination of her employment for cause. Nonetheless, employersmust be mindful that courts will consider the whole context of thedishonest misconduct to determine whether termination for cause iswarranted and that not every case of employee dishonesty justifiestermination for cause. The team at CCPartners can assist employers experiencingdifficulty navigating their termination obligations, with expertlegal advice and ways to minimize liability. Please contact one ofourlawyerswho can assist withall of your workplace concerns. ClickHEREto accessCCPartners' "Lawyers for Employers" podcasts onimportant workplace issues and developments in labour andemployment law. The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances. 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