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ROUNDUP • A roundup of legal department news and trends B.C. court awards largest punitive damages ever in employment case A jury in Prince George, B.C., has awarded a plaintiff approximately $809,000 in damages over a wrongful dismissal. Included in that amount is the largest punitive damages award in an employment law case in Canadian history. Larry Higginson worked missal, claiming he was terminated as an attempt to avoid paying severance to long- term employees. The companies, joint defendants in Higginson v. Babine Forest Products Ltd., argued they had just cause for dismissal. Murray Tevlin, a senior law- yer at Vancouver employment law firm TevlinGleadle Employment Law Strategies, which represented Higginson in the case, says, "Instead of just firing him after 34 years of faithful service, [the companies] made up a false allegation of cause for dismissal, [which] means that the employee has committed a funda- mental breach of the employment con- tract by doing some outrageous act." Tevlin also says before this "bogus allegation of cause," the companies tried to make Higginson's job miserable in order to cause him to quit. "We were able to produce evidence panies were implementing an institu- tional scheme to avoid paying severance to other employees, he says. Following a three-week trial, the The firm also gave evidence the com- " says Tevlin. jury decided that there was no cause for dismissal and awarded Higginson $236,000 in compensatory damages for wrongful dismissal and $573,000 that [the companies] were doing this because it's a small town and people talk to each other . . . and certain admissions were made, a sawmill in Burns Lake, B.C., for 34 years until October 2009, when he was fired without severance pay. Hampton Lumber Mills Inc., based in Portland, Ore., had acquired the saw- mill from Babine Forest Products Inc. in November 2006. Higginson sued for wrongful dis- at in punitive damages for the companies' conduct in terminating him. Since Prince George is a mill town, Tevlin says members of the jury were probably able to relate to Higginson's situation. "People know what it's like to lose your job when you're in the manage- ment at a mill, Also, said Higginson gave them cause for dismissal could destroy his whole social standing in the community, he adds. the fact that the companies " he says. companies treat their employees and help drive more reasonable settlements and hopefully keep actions out of court, predicts Tevlin. "Punitive damages are not com- This case will affect the way other pensatory, they are intended to punish the defendant hoping that it will cause the defendant to change its behav- iour in the future and hoping that other similarly situated defendants will also not follow this course of conduct," he says. Borbridge named chairman of Canadian Corporate Counsel Association for 2012-2013 Grant Borbridge of Calgary has been named chairman of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association for 2012-2013, a post he takes over from Geoffrey D. Creighton, of Toronto. Borbridge is executive vice president investments and chief counsel at Emergo Group of Companies. He is responsible for Emergo Group's worldwide legal and compli- ance activities, a member of its Global Portfolio Investment Committee, and co-leader of its transactions team. "This year CCCA celebrates 25 years of in-house excel- lence in providing leadership and a unified voice for the Canadian in-house counsel community," said Borbridge. "This is an exciting time to take up the position of chair as the CCCA moves forward on new professional development, advocacy and diver- sity initiatives." Called to the bar in 1990, most recently Borbridge has served on the CCCA National Executive Committee and as vice chairman of CCCA. Since 2006, he has served on the executive committee of the Alberta Corporate Counsel Section of the CBA. A dedicated commu- nity volunteer, in 2007 Borbridge was named volunteer of the year by the Alberta Volunteer Lawyers Service. Prior to joining the Emergo Group in 2004, Borbridge was vice president and senior equity analyst for Prudential Equity Group in New York (oil and gas services and equipment). He has close to a decade of experience in private practice as a corporate and securities lawyer in Calgary. He is a graduate of the University of Alberta (B.A.), Dalhousie University (LL.B.), and Pennsylvania State University (MBA finance). The new CCCA vice chairwoman will be Antoinette Bozac, vice president, human resources and general counsel of Canada Lands Company. CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 • 7

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