Three employers applied for judicial review of arbitration awards that reinstated employees who had been discharged following criminal convictions for sexual assault in the workplace.
In each case, the arbitrators had allowed the unions to collaterally attack the criminal convictions and had concluded the employees were innocent.
The Divisional Court granted the applications and quashed the arbitration awards, holding that a criminal conviction cannot be collaterally attacked at a subsequent arbitration.
The doctrine of abuse of process prevents an arbitrator from retrying a criminal case and treating a conviction as merely prima facie evidence.
