Claims of unlawful and wrongful dismissal filed against the City of Nanaimo by its former chief financial officer (CFO) Victor Mema have been dismissed by BC's Supreme Court. A July 13 Reasons for Decision document detailed that Justice Ian Caldwell found that Mema filed those portions of his multiple complaint-based action against the City too late. The “for cause” job termination happened May 14, 2018 and he delayed filing his notice of civil claim against the local government until May 13, 2021.
The judge also awarded costs in the action to the City.
But the City was unsuccessful in its application to have another portion of Mema’s claims dealt with by a summary judgment or dismissed. Actions related to Mema's claim that the municipality breached of the duties of good faith and honest performance and intentionally inflicted of mental suffering were held over.
“Whether these alleged acts occurred and, if so, whether damages flowed from them, are matters to be determined at trial” Caldwell wrote in his decisions document. No indication of a date for that proceeding were provided.
Background
Mema joined the City’s staff in mid-2015 and within a year took on its chief financial officer’s position. In that role he was offered a corporate credit card and signed a user agreement that stated use of the card for personal charges could result in “corrective action up to and including termination of employment”. The City maintains that Mema violated the agreement by charging personal transactions to the card which “included such things as an almost $1,300 charge incurred in Cancun, Mexico, while he was on vacation there," the reasons document stated.
As a result of the alleged improper card use, Nanaimo council suspended Mema from his job on March 1, 2018. His employment was terminated on May 14 of that year, and that became the cause of his BC Supreme Court action against the City.
Mema also filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal regarding circumstances surrounding his termination by the City in 2018. That complaint has been heard, written submissions were filed in Nov. 2021 but no decision has been rendered.
In 2017, that tribbunal dismissed a claim Mema filed against the District of Sechelt, related to discrimination in employment on the basis of his race, colour and place of origin during his tenure as the CFO with that local government between 2013 and 2015. In 2017 Sechelt filed and later withdrew a BC Small Claims Court action seeking repayment of just under $10,000 in charges on a District credit card it provided to Mema for municipal business-related use.
Also pending is a decision in a disciplinary hearing by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta related to Mema’s professional conduct while working for the local governments in Sechelt and Nanaimo. Disciplinary hearings on that matter were concluded earlier in 2023.
With files from Sean Eckford
