Alberta worker had no safety issues before new manager; termination decision made before incident
An Alberta worker’s termination was because of a manager’s personal vendetta and not the worker’s misconduct, the Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled.
Weyerhaeuser Company is a forest products company based in Seattle with several Canadian locations. Tyler Baker was employed with the company in Ontario for eight years until he was terminated in 2010 due to downsizing. In 2011, Weyerhaeuser brought Baker back to work as a planer supervisor at its Drayton Valley mill.
In 2012, Baker became a sawmill supervisor overseeing more than 40 employees. Part of his responsibilities was to issue work permits for “hot work, confined space entry and fall restraint.” He had a clean employment record with no safety issues and received positive performance reviews before 2015. He also received congratulations for his efforts to improve shift performance in 2015.
However, in late 2015, a new mill manager transferred to Drayton Valley and became Baker’s superior. On Nov. 9, the manager told Baker in a meeting that leadership didn’t like him and the mill crews didn’t want to work with him. The next day, Baker told the manager that his comments were “classless.”
Read more: A federally regulated employer unjustly dismissed a worker with an extensive disciplinary record because it didn’t follow its own progressive discipline policy.
After Baker’s comment, the manager wrote several emails to upper management stating that Baker wasn’t a fit with the company and the “core team” supported terminating him because he had been disrespectful after receiving feedback. However, after a lawyer advised how much severance to which Baker would be entitled, the manager decided to draft a written warning and last chance agreement that included an improvement plan. Weyerhaeuser had a progressive discipline program with a five-step process – verbal warning, written warning, short suspension, final warning, and termination.
On Nov. 16, the manager issued a written warning to Baker for “poor performance as a supervisor and overall shift results in 2015,” referring to the “classless” comment and Baker’s lack of acceptance of feedback.
The following week, there were two incidents on Baker’s shift – an employee pulled a 600-volt breaker in error and a machine was damaged in the log yard. Baker met with his supervisor and later agreed that he could have handled both incidents better.
On Dec. 14, a small fire incident happened on Baker’s shift. Video surveillance footage showed that it didn’t appear to be a significant concern, as Baker and other employees calmly worked to contain the fire. However, the fire happened after Baker had filled out a “hot work” permit falsely stating that safety precautions had been taken. The mill manager learned about the incident and the false paperwork the next day.
One week after the incident, Weyerhaeuser terminated Baker’s employment for failing to follow mandatory safety precautions or properly supervising the shift.
Baker sued for wrongful dismissal, arguing that he had no prior discipline and positive performance reviews, and Weyerhaeuser didn’t follow its progressive discipline program.
Manager’s vendetta real reason for dismissal
The trial judge acknowledged that the fire was a significant safety concern in the sawmill, so the incident was deserving of discipline. However, the evidence indicated that the mill manager had already decided to terminate Baker’s employment before that incident. The real reason for the termination was the manager “being angry at Baker for not treating him as ‘the boss,’” the judge said.
The trial judge found that Weyerhaeuser didn’t thoroughly investigate the fire and there was no comprehensive report about it. In addition, there was no evidence that the company considered whether Baker’s actions gave rise to a violation of trust that made the employment relationship irreparable.
Read more: A New Brunswick airport employee’s disobedience and dishonesty about it damaged the employment relationship but the employer should have followed progressive discipline.
The trial judge determined that Weyerhaeuser’s termination of Baker was “in bad faith and blown far out of proportion” considering his record and the fact that the company didn’t follow progressive discipline. The company was ordered to pay Baker one year’s salary in lieu of notice.
Weyerhaeuser appealed the decision, arguing that the trial judge erred in her just-cause analysis, among other errors.
The Court of Appeal noted that dismissal for cause must be proportional to the misconduct. In this case, the trial judge was correct in finding that Weyerhaeuser should have investigated the fire better as well as whether it was sufficient to serve as just cause. The company’s failure to do so didn’t reconcile “the suddenness of these events as compared with the whole of Baker’s employment history,” said the appeal court.
The court also agreed that the evidence demonstrated that the mill manager had a “private vendetta” and was looking for a reason to terminate Baker. Rather than looking at Baker’s record and the proportionality of discipline, he relied on his personal bias, said the court, adding that the onus was on the company to show just cause but the evidence showed that the manager’s personal acrimony was the true motivation for the dismissal.
The Court of Appeal upheld the decision awarding Baker one year’s pay for wrongful dismissal. See Baker v. Weyerhaeuser Company Limited, 2022 ABCA 83.
