Employer accepted resignation from employee suffering from depression and anxiety who was afraid she was going to be fired
An Alberta employee who quit her job while suffering from poor mental health did not intentionally resign her position, an arbitrator has ruled.
The 46-year-old employee was an administrative support worker for the Alberta Department of Justice. In 2008, the employee began suffering ill effects from depression. When her job performance began to slip, she told management that she had been treated for depression since she was 16 years old. Occasionally, she had to take time off when her condition worsened.
The department worked with the employee to improve her job performance and deal with her depression. It developed a performance improvement plan that involved weekly coaching meetings with her supervisor.
In March 2010, the employee was asked to fax case documents to several law firms. She couldn’t get the fax to go through to one of the firms and eventually she gave up. However, she told the lawyer who had given her the assignment that the fax had gone through as she intended to try it again the next morning. The employee ended up telling the lawyer the truth the next day.
The employee was given a written reprimand about being “not truthful and forthcoming,” which was “unacceptable and unprofessional” conduct. The reprimand also stated that “further incidents reflecting negatively on your performance may result in further discipline up to and including dismissal.”
The employee was worried that she was going to be fired, which increased her anxiety and made her unable to concentrate. The supervisor noticed a deterioration in the employee’s performance and a new improvement plan was developed. The employee also accepted a voluntary demotion to a job the department felt she could handle better as she didn’t want to lose her job.
By June 2010, the employee’s condition was so bad that she had to take three weeks off at her doctor’s recommendation. On her return date of July 5, she still wasn’t feeling well but felt she had to go back to work to save herself from being fired.
On July 7, the director asked her to post time records in the computer system. Though the employee had a doctor’s appointment, she agreed because she thought she could do it when she got back. However, after the appointment, she felt sick and called the director’s assistant to say she wouldn’t be back in the office that day.
Employee thought firing was imminent
The director was upset that the employee didn’t tell him personally that she wouldn’t be back in the office and the next day, he called her into his office. He angrily told the employee her abilities did not match her position and her job was going to be re-evaluated to get her performance up to acceptable levels.
The employee thought she was going to be fired, so she wrote a letter of resignation and sent it to the director and her supervisor. The director asked her if she really intended to resign and she said “yes,” adding that she needed to change careers. A few days later, she emailed her supervisor saying her illness affected her ability to do her job. She said she resigned because she thought she was going to be fired. The employee intended to be at work for her two weeks’ notice but soon had to stay home because of depression symptoms.
The employee sunk into a deep depression and was housebound for the next few months. She spoke with her family and they agreed she hadn’t really wanted to resign. With the assistance of a lawyer, she drafted a letter to the department asking it to rescind her resignation. She explained that she shouldn’t have made such a permanent decision in the condition she was in. She also included a doctor’s letter that indicated her judgment had been impaired.
However, the department replied that it had accepted her resignation in good faith and she had confirmed her decision with both the director and supervisor after a chance to think about it. It couldn’t maintain vacancies for an indefinite amount of time in case someone who resigned changed her mind, it said.
The arbitrator found that her resignation letter and confirmations indicated an objective intention to resign. However, her follow-up email to the supervisor indicated that her decision was affected by the mistaken belief she would be fired and the employer did nothing to correct that impression. She had no intention of resigning until the meeting with the director, and the employer was well aware of her mental illness, which should have given some context to how it handled the situation, said the arbitrator.
