A judgment has come down in a Supreme Court of Canada case involving a Northern Health Region (NHR) employee who was fired in 2012.
In a 6-1 decision, the highest court in the land ruled that Linda Horrocks, a former employee of the NHR, can only take a grievance over her dismissal to a labour tribunal and not to a human rights commission.
The case surrounds Horrocks, who worked for the NHR at the Northern Lights Manor as a unionized care aide represented by CUPE. The NHR is referred to by its previous name, the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) in most documents and source material related to the case.
A Supreme Court brief on the case said Horrocks suffered from alcohol dependence, which the NRHA determined to be a disability covered under the collective agreement with Horrocks’ union which contained language meant to forbid discrimination based on physical or mental disabilities.
In June 2011, a supervisor believed Horrocks was intoxicated at work, leading to her being suspended without pay pending an investigation. According to the brief, Horrocks was offered a deal where the NRHA would allow her to return to work if she signed an agreement demanding total abstinence from alcohol consumption. Horrocks refused to sign the document, leading the NRHA to fire her and CUPE to file a grievance over the firing.
The health region and the union agreed to terms that would allow Horrocks back to work in April 2012. The terms included abstaining from alcohol and that Horrocks would enter counselling and agree to random drug and alcohol tests. The brief then said that the NRHA received two reports in 2012 that Horrocks was intoxicated outside of work, leading to her being terminated by the NRHA.
In response to the second firing, Horrocks filed a complaint to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. In 2015, Horrocks’ case was heard by the Manitoba Human Rights Adjudication Panel, which deemed that Horrocks had been “unreasonably discriminated against” on the basis of alcohol use disorder when she was fired. The panel’s decision was reviewed by the provincial Court of Queen’s Bench and Court of Appeal before reaching the Supreme Court. The NHR applied for leave to appeal in Dec. 2018. The case was granted permission to be heard by the Supreme Court in March 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada.
The ruling does not cover whether or not Horrocks’ second firing - only whether she would be able to move the case ahead to a human rights commission instead of a labour tribunal.
The decision was not unanimous, with Supreme Court Justice Andromache Karakatsanis adding a 30-page long rebuttal to the court’s decision.
“In my view, the Court of Appeal was correct in deciding that the human rights adjudicator in this case had jurisdiction to hear the dispute. Accordingly, I would dismiss the appeal,” reads Karakatsanis’ conclusion.
