The Northern Health Region (NHR) is challenging a human rights adjudicator’s ruling that requires it compensate and rehire a former Flin Flon health care aide.
The NHR is pursuing a judicial review of the ruling to determine whether the adjudicator made a legal error in siding with Linda Horrocks.
“The Region remains disappointed in the Human Rights Commission adjudicator’s decision and respectfully disagrees with it,” read a statement issued by the NHR late last week. “As a result, we are pursuing the available option of a judicial review. We believe the issues are of a legal nature and therefore believe the Court is the best place to resolve this matter. As a result, the Region will not be making further comment until the court process has concluded.”
Last month, a Manitoba human rights adjudicator ruled that the NHR wrongly dismissed Horrocks over her alcoholism, considered a disability. She was awarded full back pay and $10,000 in compensation.
While there is no procedure to appeal the adjudicator’s decision, the NHR has the option of taking the matter to the Court of Queen’s Bench, where a judge can determine if the decision relied on a flawed understanding of the law.
In an interview with The Reminder shortly after the adjudicator’s decision, renowned Canadian employment lawyer Christine Thomlinson said “nothing immediately jumped out” at her in the ruling that “appeared to be fundamentally at odds with similar decisions of this nature.”
Horrocks, a former health care aide at the Northern Lights Manor, was suspended in 2011 after allegedly going to work while under the influence of alcohol.
She was fired the following month after refusing to sign an agreement to abstain from alcohol at all times, even when not at work.
Horrocks grieved the firing and was rehired in April 2012 when she changed her mind and signed the no-alcohol agreement.
She never returned to the Manor, however, because she was fired again later that month when it was alleged she smelled of alcohol at a grocery store and sounded intoxicated in a phone conversation.
Horrocks proclaimed her innocence and took the matter to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.
“It is important to recognize that it constitutes discrimination for an employer to rely on personal experiences and common place assumptions or stereotypes rather than on objective assessments when determining an accommodation plan for an employee who has a disability,” Sherri Walsh, the government-appointed adjudicator, wrote in her decision. “Unfortunately I find such discrimination occurred in this case.”
