The applicant union sought judicial review of a labour arbitration award that upheld the termination of a registered nurse for stealing narcotics from the respondent hospital.
The nurse suffered from a drug addiction.
The Divisional Court found that the arbitrator's decision was unreasonable because he failed to properly consider whether the hospital engaged in indirect discrimination by terminating the nurse rather than accommodating her disability.
The arbitrator improperly equated the nurse's guilty plea to criminal theft with voluntary behaviour in the human rights context, applying a higher standard of causation than required.
The court set aside the arbitration award and remitted the matter back to the arbitrator to determine the issue of indirect discrimination.
