Employee wasn't honest about whereabouts during sick leave
An Ontario employer who fired an employee who went on a trip while on sick leave had just cause for dismissal, the Ontario Arbitration Board has ruled.
An employee named W. Balsor worked for the Niagara Catholic District School Board and was involved in the union. On April 30, 2009, Balsor applied for a leave of absence for May 8 to prepare for a round of mediation. On the same day, she saw a doctor who diagnosed her with a “mechanical strain” in her left heel, which was causing her pain. The doctor wrote a medical note saying Balsor should be off work between May 1 and May 7.
According to Balsor, her husband received a call on May 2 inviting him to Chicago for a business venture he had been pursuing. Her husband did not want to leave her alone while she recovered from her foot problem, so she went along, stretched out in the back seat of the car. While her husband was in Chicago, Balsor stayed with her sister in a nearby town, where she said she rested her foot and iced it. A friend of her sister’s who was a doctor looked at the foot while she was there.
A couple of weeks later, the school board learned Balsor had been in Chicago while on sick leave in the first week of May. Management met with Balsor and a union representative and asked her where she was. Balsor initially replied that she was at home resting her foot. When told her email had been accessed from Chicago, she then said she saw a specialist in Chicago named Sheila for her foot on May 5 and avoided questions about any other reason she was in Chicago. The school board said it needed a medical note from the specialist to verify her story.
The school board suspended Balsor without pay on June 5, 2009, pending additional investigation. Balsor emailed the director of eduction, arguing her doctor’s note did not stipulated she had to be confined to her home and her inconsistent answers during the interview were because she had been intimidated and felt she was “being interrogated.”
By June 22, the school board had not received a medical note from the specialist in Chicago. As a result, it suspected Balsor obtained her original doctor’s note so she could travel to Chicago with her husband. It concluded she hadn’t been honest about her sick days and terminated her employment.
The arbitration board found Balsor’s explanations were improbable on many counts, such as that the trip was spur-of-the-moment. Shortly before she applied for the leave, she had said she would be unavailable for a union meeting the first week of May. Her lack of forthrightness during the meeting was also suspicious, since she only revealed she went to Chicago after being pressed. Her inability to get a note to support her claim she went to Chicago to see a specialist reinforced the school board’s suspicions.
