VANCOUVER — A longtime employee of a First Nation on Vancouver Island has been awarded nearly $160,000 for being fired without cause and reasonable notice.
The Cowichan Tribes dismissed Jennifer George, the associate executive director of its child and family services program, in May 2013, partly because of an altercation at a pub about three months earlier.
A band investigator's report, submitted as evidence in court, accused George of being intoxicated, verbally harassing another member and threatening to take away her children.
Court heard the alleged victim, Anita Seymour, was dating the father of two of George's grandchildren and was also the sister of the band's human resources manager.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ronald Skolrood says the First Nation failed to prove any of the allegations or that George was dishonest during a subsequent investigation.
George was awarded about $159,000 in general and aggravated damages, although the judge declined to award punitive damages to the woman who began working for the band in 1980.
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