Sask. employment disputes stalled for years by adjudicator who failed to provide decisions
A woman whose job was to decide the outcome of employment-based legal disputes has been named by the Saskatchewan Ombudsman in a report outlining how she failed to make a decision on multiple cases for more than two years.
The case was included in the Saskatchewan Ombudsman's annual report released today.
As an adjudicator for appeals and hearings for employment cases under Saskatchewan law, Rusti-Ann Blanke was supposed to deliver written reasons for her decision within 60 days of the hearing date.
Blanke failed to deliver some decisions for more than two-and-a-half years after their respective hearing dates and more than two years after the deadlines to complete them.
Blanke told CBC there are five cases still pending her decision. She said four of them would be released on Tuesday, April 23, but she declined to comment further.
Blanke misses 60-day legal deadline
At least one worker's job was in limbo while she waited for Blanke to make a decision.
The woman, referred to only as "Jane" in the Ombudsman report, had won an unlawful dismissal claim against her employer in February 2016. Jane claimed she was fired after she reported harassment from two other workers to her manager.
As part of the decision by the Occupational Health and Safety division, Jane was offered mediation services to help her return to work.
When her employer appealed the decision, Blanke was assigned to be the adjudicator for the case. According to the Ombudsman's report, Blanke stayed the original decision until her own decision on the appeal had been made, meaning Jane could not return to her job until Blanke's written reasons were delivered.
The appeal was heard on June 1 and 2, 2016, but the report said Blanke failed to provide the written decisions within the 60-day deadline.
According to the Ombudsman, Blanke told Jane in December of that year the decision would be complete by the end of that month, but it was never issued.
The decision was still not complete in February 2018, when the employer contacted Blanke.
Jane reported the case to the Ombudsman, whose office contacted the adjudicator twice to ask when it would be completed.
Ombudsman tries to seek out response
The report includes excerpts from Blanke's emailed response to the Ombudsman's first request.
"The…decision is ready to issue, and I will distribute it Monday morning [May 27, 2018.] … …I do not want this to come off as a litany of excuses I will just say that 2017 has been an extremely difficult year on multiple fronts, ….[.] … Coupled with an [sic] still overwhelming amount of work on my plate, it has been, at times, almost paralyzing — certainly extremely difficult to focus on one task with others looming in the background. In retrospect, I regret that I didn't have foresight to reduce my consultancy commitments sooner."
The Ombudsman said Blanke did not provide the decision on the promised day, or any time after that. She did not respond to the Ombudsman's next request for the decision.
By this time, Blanke was no longer an adjudicator. Her appointment had been cancelled just days after Jane's hearing on June 7, however she was still required to complete the written decisions for the cases she heard in the role.
'Extremely unfair'
"We find Ms. Blanke's failure to complete the decision in Jane's case within the statutory timeframe is contrary to the law, and the extraordinary delay in her doing so since then is extremely unfair to all parties to the proceedings," said the 2018 report.
It said the difficulties Blanke outlined in her email did not explain her failure to render the decision or why she repeatedly told the parties involved she would do it but did not follow through.
The Ombudsman's annual report released Thursday said Rusti-Ann Blanke was named publicly in the hope that it would finally encourage her to render decisions on the outstanding cases. The Ombudsman's office says Blanke has still not provided a written decision on Jane's case.
