City's investigation flawed but still just cause for dismissal
A British Columbia municipality had just cause to fire a deputy fire chief for insolent behaviour and undermining the fire chief’s authority, the B.C. Supreme Court has ruled.
Daniel Golob, 54, was hired by the City of Fort St. John, B.C., in February 2008. He worked as a fire training officer for more than a decade, which was a unionized position subject to the collective agreement between the city and the Fort St. John Firefighters Association.
In 2017, the city began succession planning for a new fire chief, as the current one would be forced to retire in November 2019 when he turned 60 years old, as required by the city’s mandatory retirement policy. It promoted the existing deputy fire chief into the role of director of public safety with the intention of making him the next fire chief. However, it became evident that the deputy chief was stretched thin, so a second deputy fire chief position was created and Golob was promoted to the role. His responsibilities involved operations including fire suppression and training, while the other deputy chief was responsible for community safety.
Deputy fire chief was a non-unionized position, so Golob signed an employment agreement that included a termination clause allowing the city to terminate him with or without cause. The agreement also stated that it “superseded all other agreements, understandings, collateral representations and warranties” concerning his employment with the city.
In December 2019, the deputy fire chief who was also the director of public safety was promoted to fire chief. Another deputy chief was hired and Golob was part of the hiring committee, although the new chief had final say. A friend of his applied for the position, but he was unsuccessful.
In May 2020, a firefighter complained to the chief that many officers were unwilling to be mentored by Golob. The firefighter also said that he had overheard Golob in his office loudly complaining to another officer about the lack of competence by a crew during a recent call, during which Golob had called the crew “idiots” and used profanity. The chief told Golob that this behaviour was unacceptable and he should apologize to the firefighter who had complained. Golob did so and the matter was considered concluded.
A short time later, the vice-president of the union told the chief that some members were unwilling to work with Golob in the mentorship program that the department was trying to launch. The program involved each of the captains having either the chief or one of the two deputy chiefs as a mentor in order to instill leadership qualities from the top of the chain of command.
Investigation into deputy chief’s conduct
This led to discussion between the chief and the human resources department about the firefighters’ willingness to accept Golob as deputy chief and Golob’s willingness to accept the new chief. They decided to launch an investigation into Golob’s behaviour under the city’s code of conduct policy.
The investigation interviewed the other deputy chief and nine firefighters, but not Golob. It found that there was widespread dissatisfaction with Golob’s manner of leading and teaching. All the firefighters interviewed saw Golob as “loud, brusque and often profane” and some called his leadership style “dictatorial.” Several described unpleasant encounters with him.
Many firefighters were unwilling to be mentored by the deputy fire chief.
The chief determined that Golob didn’t have any respect for anyone else in the fire department and “he wants to be chief.” The city decided to terminate Golob’s employment based on a pattern of insubordinate misconduct that breached the employment contract. On June 22, 2020, it terminated his employment with a termination letter that referred to breaches of city polices but didn’t describe specific examples. Golob, who hadn’t been aware of the investigation, asked for details, but these weren’t forthcoming. Two days later, Golob was allowed to return to the fire hall to collect his personal belongings.
Golob commenced an action against the city for wrongful dismissal.
A short time later, in July, the city downloaded several emails and text messages from Golob’s city-issued cellphone. It discovered several text messages between Golob and his friend who had unsuccessfully applied for the deputy fire chief position during the period that the friend has been interviewing for the position, about the internal hiring process. The city considered this communication to be inappropriate, as was the tone — in several messages, Golob insulted the chief with profanity and suggested that the hiring process was unfair. He also suggested that his friend use his seniority to block others who might be considered for promotion.
The court found that the city’s investigation was flawed, as the focus of the investigation was on Golob’s treatment of other employees. As a result, it should have been conducted under the city’s discrimination and harassment policy, not the code of conduct policy, which had different procedures including allowing Golob to respond to the allegations.
However, the problems with the investigation didn’t affect whether there was just cause for termination, which requires “employee behaviour that, viewed in all the circumstances, is seriously incompatible with the employee’s duties, conduct which goes to the root of the contract and fundamentally strikes at the employment relationship,” the court said in referring to the standard established in previous jurisprudence.
The court found that while Golob wasn’t popular with many firefighters who felt he was overly critical and not easy to get along with, there was no evidence that he was deliberately bullying people. The evidence indicated that otherwise, he was “a highly competent firefighter” who wasn’t given an opportunity to change his ways of delivering criticism and feedback, the court said, adding that Golob only used profanity in the presence of other firefighters, not the general public, and profanity was common in the fire hall.
Pattern of insolent behaviour
The court also found that Golob’s behaviour, which involved “derisive or contemptuous language directed towards a superior” was better characterized as insolence rather than insubordination.” However, while insolence may not be considered as serious as insubordination, the evidence demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that “viewed cumulatively, constitutes a fundamental breach of the employment contract, making the continuing relationship unworkable,” the court added.
“Broadly put, there was a breakdown in the chain of command, specifically the open contempt Mr. Golob exhibited towards [the chief], through his words and actions, over a sustained period of time,” the court said. “Moreover, the behaviour of Mr. Golob, in general and in particular during the hiring of a second deputy chief, was fundamentally incompatible with the duty of loyalty that he owed to the city in his capacity as a deputy chief.”
The court also noted that Golob didn’t expressly deny anything, but he qualified his behaviour as “borne of frustration” and he was questioning the new chief’s education and qualifications.
In addition, the discovery of the after-acquired evidence through the messages on Golob’s work cellphone made the case for just-cause termination “unassailable,” said the court. The messages were another indicator that Golob had undermined the chief and the hiring process, damaging the employment relationship beyond repair, said the court in upholding the termination for cause.
For more information, see:
- Golob v. Fort St. John (City), 2021 BCSC 2192 (B.C. S.C.).
