Punitive Damages For Political Firing

Up first, it says BC ordered to pay aggravated and punitive damages over the firing of a public servant for political purposes.

What happened?

So there's a lot going on in this case, and listeners may recall this decision, which was a Victoria case, and the decision just came out this week.

The particular case was a claim for wrongful dismissal by a career public servant who had worked for the provincial government for some 30 years.

And she was fired without cause on June 29, 2027.

And the significance of that date is that it's also the date where the Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberal Party lost confidence vote in the legislature.

And that was the end of the Liberal government, the beginning of Horgan.

And all of this had to do with the, again, listeners may recall, very unfortunate election.

handling of an issue with respect to the Ministry of Health and allegations that there had been improper release of information that led to the improper firing of a bunch of other public servants who worked there at the time.

That led eventually to a report by the ombudsperson that came out in April of 2027 that was entitled Misfire, the 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Termination and Related Matters, finding that they'd been improperly accused of doing this.

And that led to one of the people involved committing suicide.

So a terribly handled background.

And This particular case came out of this claim brought by this 30-year career public servant.

And it's important to remember when we use that term, sort of 30-year career public servant, most of the people that work for the government are not political appointees.

They just work for the government, whoever the government might be.

They just do their job, whoever it might be.

And this woman was in that category.

But what the judge found occurred is that the head of the public servants, who is a political appointment, decided to fire her on this very day that the government was about to fall and be replaced with an effort the judge found in order to suggest that she may have been responsible for the mishandling of that firing and the suicide and all the very negative political consequences of that, found that the decision to fire this public servant in this way at that time was politically motivated.

And the judge had very little patience for that conclusion, finding that It was necessary to send a clear message to the defendant, and I'll come to a moment in terms of who the defendant is, that public servants are not to be used as pawns for political purposes, and found that the defendant took advantage of the power imbalance, making the plaintiff into a political scapegoat, firing her at a timing and in a way that might have caused people to think that she was the one who made this decision.

A terrible decision and handling of the firing of the other employees rather than a political decision made by the then government.

So that's how it was a politically motivated firing, which had very serious consequences for this woman.

She was fired from a job of 30 years that had all kinds of implications for her.

And the judge concluded that all of that was so bad that it called for punitive damages to be awarded against the defendant, and it amounted to a total of $250,000.

Now, there are a few things to break out about this that I think are just important to know.

Other elements of it included the fact that the government had, at the time, decided to withhold the regular severance payment she was entitled to.