Vancouver — A B.C. Supreme Court justice has ruled in favour of the City of Fort St. John, despite concluding that the city's investigation of allegations against a former employee was "fundamentally flawed."
The former employee in question is Daniel Golob, who was one of two deputy chiefs of the city's fire department until his dismissal in June 2020.
The city fired Golob "with cause," and he sued for wrongful termination, arguing that his dismissal had been without cause, and that he therefore should have been entitled to severance pay.
The investigation that led to Golob's firing began after a discussion between the city's Fire Chief Darrell Blades and its director of human resources Rashid Hasan, according to the decision issued this week by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen.
The pair discussed concerns Blades had about the willingness of the firefighters' union to work with Golob as deputy chief, as well as an incident in which a firefighter overheard Golob "loudly complaining to another officer about the lack of competence exhibited by a crew during a recent call," according to Tamman's decision.
An investigation into Golob's conduct soon began, and Hasan and Blades conducted interviews with nine firefighters and the other deputy chief.
"Importantly, Mr. Golob was never interviewed, nor made aware that there was an investigation prior to being terminated," Tamman wrote.
The justice also wrote that the investigation was conducted under the city's code of conduct policy, despite most of the questions being pointedly related to the city's policy on discrimination and harassment.
"In broad terms, the investigation revealed dissatisfaction with Mr. Golob’s manner of leading and teaching, when he was training officer, on the part of many interviewees," Tamman wrote. "Clearly, they all perceived Mr. Golob as being loud, brusque and often profane. His leadership style was described by some as dictatorial."
The judge wrote that Hasan and Blades were concerned by the feedback they received from interviewees, and decided that Golob should be dismissed.
'In my view, Mr. Hasan, in particular, was so focussed on maintaining harmonious relations with the union that he lost sight of the real issue, namely whether to terminate with or without cause," Tamman wrote. "At the time of that decision, there was no identified misconduct on the part of Mr. Golob so serious that it warranted termination for cause."
Despite finding that the city's investigation was "fundamentally flawed," Tamman ultimately determined that the city had fired Golob with cause, primarily because of evidence discovered after the investigation and Golob's termination.
Text messages on Golob's city-issued cellphone showed that he had communicated with Capt. Mark D'Agostino while D'Agostino was applying for the department's other deputy chief position.
According to Tamman, Golob's texts to D'Agostino expressed displeasure with Blades' leadership, cast doubt on the fairness of the hiring process, and "counseled Mr. D’Agostino to use his seniority to block others who might be considered for promotion."
"Such conduct constitutes a breach of the fundamental terms of the employment contract that Mr. Golob 'not promote disharmony or discontent' among other city employees, and that he generally do everything in his power to promote the interests of the city," Tamman wrote.
The justice found that the city's decision to fire Golob with cause was justified because of the deputy chief's repeated pattern of insolence toward Blades, as well as his inappropriate messages to D'Agostino.
"It is evident, from an objective review of that entire body of evidence, that the mutual trust required to sustain a viable employment relationship was irretrievably lost between the parties," Tamman wrote. "The primary cause of the relationship breakdown was the misconduct of Mr. Golob."
He dismissed Golob's lawsuit and ordered Golob to pay partial court costs for the city.
