Employer was not justified in firing B.C. woman for opening confidential mail: tribunal

A small-claims court awarded a B.C. damages for wrongful dismissal.

A B.C. woman who opened confidential mail has been awarded $5,000 for wrongful dismissal after a tribunal found that her misconduct was not a fireable offence.

Sporting goods manufacturer Pro Line Sports Ltd. has been ordered to pay former employee Hailey Dionne a total of $5,518, according to a recent decision from the Civil Resolution Tribunal.

Dionne, who started working for the company in 2022 in a sales support and customer service role, received an email from Pro Line in October 2023 stating her job would be terminated. The email said Dionne would be receiving two weeks worth of wages, instead of notice.

According to the decision, employers do not have to give a notice period if there was “just cause” to fire the employee, which Pro Line Sports stated there was in the circumstances – alleging misconduct on Dionne’s part.

The misconduct in question related to Dionne opening a mail package from Pro Line’s payroll company without permission. The package, containing wage slips for Dionne and seven other employees, was addressed to the company and had ‘confidential’ written in its address window.

According to the decision, the wage statements were sealed, and Dionne only opened her own. However, the package also contained unsealed pages of payroll information that contained confidential employee information, including employees’ earnings.

Dionne told the tribunal she opened the package to obtain her own wage statement because her employer often forgot to distribute them. If that was the case, the tribunal said, Dionne should have followed established procedures instead of “engag(ing) in aggressive self-help.”

According to the decision, Pro Line said trust was compromised when Dionne opened the envelope “clearly marked confidential” and addressed to the company’s owner. Further, the employer told the tribunal, “it concluded that the breach of trust was something it could not move on from.”

The tribunal determined that misconduct occurred, but that it was not serious enough to warrant dismissal.

“Ms. Dionne was honest about what happened. She acknowledged that she opened the envelope. Her belief that she did nothing wrong was mistaken, but she was not deceitful,” the decision read.

“Ms. Dionne’s decision to open confidential mail was misguided, but there is no evidence her intentions were nefarious.”

The judge determined nine weeks to be an appropriate notice period for Dionne and, given she had already received two weeks’ wages from Pro Line Sports, she would be entitled to the equivalent of seven weeks’ wages in compensation.