Officers left secure vehicle for colleagues to use to transport inmate despite orders to the contrary
The interest of public safety and security was reasonable motivation for two Nova Scotia correctional officers who disobeyed orders in leaving a secure vehicle at a hospital to transport an inmate, a federal labour board has ruled in overturning discipline against the officers for not returning the vehicle to their institution.
Megan Comeau and Darin Pettis are correctional officers at the Springhill Institution in Springhill, N.S. On Oct. 3, 2012, they were dispatched to relieve two other correctional officers who were guarding a minimum-security inmate while he was treated at a hospital in Halifax overnight. For the assignment, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) provided the two officers with a secure vehicle to travel to Halifax, with the plan that they would return in the same vehicle the next morning.
Before Comeau and Pettis departed for the hospital, medical staff told them that the inmate would be released the next day. Since the two correctional officers who would be taking over from them in the morning would only have a regular passenger vehicle, they planned to exchange vehicles with them — the new shift receiving the secure vehicle with Comeau and Pettis returning to the institution in the regular passenger vehicle.
The manager responsible for scheduling looked at the vehicle dispatch sheet and noticed that Comeau and Pettis were returning in a different vehicle than the one in which they had departed for Halifax. This concerned him, because it would only leave one secure vehicle at the institution that didn’t require a special class of driver’s licence. Since the inmate at the hospital was minimum security, he and another manager decided it was safer for Comeau and Pettis to return in the secure vehicle and have the other correctional officers bring the inmate back in the regular vehicle they already had.
The manager directed Comeau and Pettis to return with their original secure vehicle and left at the end of his shift with the impression that they were clear on this instruction — he spoke to Comeau just before he left and the overnight manager on duty had spoken to Pettis. However, Comeau and Pettis returned with the regular vehicle, having left the secure one at the hospital.
The next morning, before the inmate had been returned, an emergency medical transfer was scheduled for another inmate. Because there was less than 72 hours’ notice, policy required it to automatically become a secure escort situation. The secure vehicle Comeau and Pettis had been assigned the previous night was assigned for this job, but it couldn’t be found. The manager on the overnight shift checked with the correctional officers who had taken over at the hospital and discovered the secure vehicle was with them, having not been returned by Comeau and Pettis.
There were no other secure vehicles at the institution with regular licence requirement, so the manager had to call the fleet office to find someone with a special class of licence. This took about 40 minutes.
CSC determined Comeau and Pettis had disobeyed orders to return in the secure vehicle they had taken and didn’t inform management of their change in plan. As a result, they jeopardized the safety of the institution, inmates, and staff. The overnight manager held disciplinary hearings for both of them.
Pettis said he had followed the directions on the dispatch sheet because they made more sense than the manager’s instructions. While he said he didn’t intend to be insubordinate, he offered no reason why he didn’t tell the manager he had left the secure vehicle in Halifax. Comeau also indicated she didn’t intend to be insubordinate, but otherwise said nothing at the direction of her union representative and showed no remorse from what the manager could see.
Since neither Pettis nor Comeau had any prior discipline on their records, the overnight manager issued a one-day financial penalty to both. They grieved the penalty, arguing it was without cause and their discipline was decided by the overnight manager, not the one who had given them the order.
CSC countered that Comeau and Pettis had been given a clear order to return with the secure vehicle with a clear reason — to ensure a secure vehicle was available for an emergency. There was no evidence of any health and safety concerns over using an unsecure vehicle to transport a minimum-security inmate from the hospital back to the institution, but at any rate they didn’t contact management with any concerns before deciding to switch vehicles.
The board found that the decision of Comeau and Pettis to leave the secure vehicle at the hospital to transport the inmate was “without any malice” and was made out of concern for “the employer’s policies and the threat posed to the public” — they believed they were acting in the best interests of the institution and the public. Regardless, there was no clear evidence the two correctional officers were given “a direct and unequivocal order” to return the secure vehicle.
In addition, the board found the overnight manager reacted disproportionately and shouldn’t have conducted the disciplinary hearing, as she seemed to take the incident as a challenge to her authority and was too close to the situation. CSC didn’t properly investigate the situation, as it didn’t ask Comeau and Pettis why they had left the secure vehicle in Halifax — which would have showed there was no intention to defy the overnight manager, said the board.
The board found the one-day financial penalty was inappropriate and inconsistent with progressive discipline for two employees with no disciplinary records. It ordered CSC to compensate Comeau and Pettis for their financial loss, plus interest over the time since the penalty was issued, and expunge the discipline from their records. See Comeau v. Deputy Head (Correctional Service of Canada), 2017 CarswellNat 4021 (Can. Pub. Service Lab. Rel. & Emp. Bd.).
