Goyette v. Treasury Board (Solicitor General Canada - Correctional Service)

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166-2-31112 and 31113 (2002 PSSRB 107)
Goyette v. Treasury Board (Solicitor General Canada – Correctional Service)

Before: J.-P. Tessier
Appearances: C. Lalande, for the Grievor; J. Champagne, for the Employer
Decision rendered: December 20, 2002

Dismissal (disciplinary) – Suspension without pay during an investigation – relationship of trust broken – the grievor has been employed at the Correctional Service since 1983 and at the time of the events related, she held a position as a correctional officer – the grievor was on sick leave from work from February 23 to July 3, 1998 – on March 17, 2000, the grievor was informed that she was suspended without pay during an investigation into her absences over the previous few years – the employer claimed that she had used sick and family leave but on those occasions she was actually at a second job – after the results of the investigation were made known on August 21, 2000, the grievor was notified by the employer that she was dismissed for using her sick leave fraudulently – the employer added that the grievor did not inform the employer that she had another job, thus contravening the Code of Discipline and Standards of Professional Conduct, as well as the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code of the Public Service- for all these reasons, the employer concluded that the bond of trust was broken – the adjudicator considered it essential to examine how important it is for employees to inform their employer that they hold another job; whether the grievor's use of sick and family leave beginning in 1995 deserved disciplinary action; and whether the employer delayed taking action and whether that is a factor that would attenuate the disciplinary action – the adjudicator referred to Article 26 of the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code of the Public Service and Standard 5 of the Correctional Service's Standards of Professional Conduct and found that they are sufficiently explicit to warn employees against engaging in activities outside their work that may jeopardize their integrity or their performance as employees – given the complexity of this case and the need to compare in detail the grievor's periods of absence and her periods of work at Centre Jeunesse Laval, the adjudicator considered the suspension for the duration of the investigation to be justified – moreover, the adjudicator considered that, since the evidence established that over a five-year period the grievor used sick leave at times that coincided with her outside job, since she never informed her employer about her outside job, since she did not inform the employer's doctors or her own specialist that she had a second job during her absence in 1998, since she lied about the reasons for her absences on Wednesday mornings, and since she admitted using her leave fraudulently, the employer was right to conclude that the bond of trust was broken.

Grievances dismissed.

Case cited: Goyette (166-2-31116).