Impaired Driving Not Cause for Dismissal of Assistant Fire Chief

February 22 2018 An Assistant Fire Chief driving is pulled over for suspected impaired driving whereupon he fails two breathalyzer tests.  He was driving the Fire Chief’s truck, which was impounded.  His licence is suspended for 90 days. Do you think the fire department has cause for summary dismissal without notice?  In an interesting recent wrongful dismissal decision out of British Columbia, a court has ruled that the employer did not have cause.  What interests me about this case is the judge’s assessment that the impaired driving by a senior official was not a very serious infraction and that it did not pose any threat to the interests of the employer or the public.  See what you think. The case is called Klonteig v. West Kelowna (District) (2018, BCSC) Facts The employee, KK, was a firefighter employed by the City of West Kelowna as Assistant Fire Chief.  He commented this job in 2008 and was terminated in 2013 for alleged…

Read more detail on Recent Employment Law posts –

This entry was posted in Employment and Labour Law and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply