Former B.C. College of Teachers employee can keep $271,000 severance payment
Appeal court says B.C. government assumed obligations of defunct body
BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE – SEPTEMBER 4, 2014
A former employee of the defunct B.C. College of Teachers will get to keep $271,000 in severance payments awarded to her by a judge who found she’d been fired without cause. Beverley Maxwell was the director of certification for the college prior to January 2012, when the B.C. government dissolved the college and replaced it with the Teacher Regulation Branch (Photograph by: ., Thinkstock)
A former employee of the defunct B.C. College of Teachers will get to keep $271,000 in severance payments awarded to her by a judge who found she’d been fired without cause.
Beverley Maxwell was the director of certification for the college prior to January 2012, when the B.C. government dissolved the college and replaced it with the Teacher Regulation Branch.
In December 2011, Maxwell was offered employment with the branch but did not accept it and ceased her employment shortly afterwards.
She took the college and government to court and claimed that she had been fired and sought a severance package.
A judge awarded her $271,000 in salary and benefits, but the college appealed that ruling.
On appeal, the college and the government denied that Maxwell had been dismissed and argued she was not entitled to compensation because she hadn’t accepted employment with the branch.
In a ruling released Thursday, B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Edward Chiasson noted that the dissolution was not the act of the college but the effect at law was the same and Maxwell’s employment was terminated without cause.
“Although the College did not itself make the decision to terminate the respondent’s employment, the government’s decision to dissolve the College amounted to the same thing,” said Chiasson.
He added that pursuant to the Teachers Act, the government was vested with the college’s right to end the employment relationship with Maxwell but all of the liabilities and obligations of the college were transferred to and assumed by the government.
“In my view, those obligations included the respondent’s right not to be terminated without cause absent contractual compensation. The government assumed that obligation and the College’s liability to compensate.”
Justice Kathryn Neilson and Justice Nicole Garson agreed with Chiasson.