NC-055 - Medical Discharge

The Appellant appealed a decision of the Force that medically discharged her for reason of disability. She argued that the Force did not meet its duty to accommodate by not adequately communicating with her, not offering her accommodation options for work, and by finding her unfit for work when the latest medical certificates from her physicians indicated that she could do non-front line work.

The ERC found that, while there was not an optimal level of communication, it did not rise to the level of inadequate communication.

The ERC found that it was not open to the Force to provide accommodation options for work to the Appellant once the HSO assigned a permanent G4-O6 medical profile to her. Prior to that, the Force could not offer her accommodation options because her health care providers had indicated that she was unfit for duty.

The ERC found that the Force did not meet its duty to accommodate the Appellant to the point of undue hardship. There were indications in the record that the Appellant's health care providers deemed her fit to do non-front line work. Moreover, it was unclear that the HSO had reviewed this information prior to indicating that his opinion on the Appellant's medical profile had not changed. At a minimum, the HSO should have explained, without going into medical details which are not normally part of the record in a discharge proceeding, why the evidence provided was insufficient to change his opinion.

The ERC lastly found that it was not clear from the record whether the Force had provided sufficient time following the HSO's approval of treatment to determine whether the treatment would impact the Appellant's occupational prognosis. The ERC concluded that despite the considerable deference owed to the decision-maker, the discharge decision was clearly unreasonable.

The ERC recommended that the appeal be allowed.

The Commissioner's decision, as summarized by her office, is as follows:

The Appellant was first employed by the RCMP as a Temporary Civilian Employee, and then hired as a Civilian Member on September 18, 2009. On July 16, 2016, the Appellant went off-duty sick. On June 19, 2018, discharge proceedings were initiated, and on January 8, 2019, an order to discharge was issued. The Appellant appealed the discharge decision arguing that it was clearly unreasonable on the basis that the Force failed to demonstrate she had been accommodated to the point of undue hardship. The Appeal was referred to the ERC for review. The Chairperson of the ERC recommended that the appeal be allowed. The Adjudicator was not persuaded that the RCMP had accommodated the Appellant to the point of undue hardship and found the Respondent's decision to be clearly unreasonable. The appeal was allowed.