Fired Horizon CEO awarded record-breaking $2M in unjust dismissal case against province

The former head of Horizon Health Network has been awarded more than $2 million in his unjust dismissal case against the province after he was publicly fired by the premier last summer following the death of a patient in a Fredericton emergency department waiting room.

Dr. John Dornan's lawyers say it's the largest employment compensation award in the province's history and accurately reflects the losses suffered by their client.

It includes about $385,000 a year for the balance of his five-year contract, plus $200,000 in aggravated damages, which is unprecedented under the Public Service Labour Relations Act, according to his lawyers.

No punitive damages or costs were awarded in the decision the adjudicator issued Wednesday.

Dornan served as president and CEO of Horizon for only four months when Premier Blaine Higgs announced his termination during a news conference July 15 in a major shakeup of New Brunswick's health-care leadership.

"If we don't get better management results in our hospitals, we won't get better health care," Higgs said at the time.

Dornan's grievance wasn't just about the money, said his Toronto-based lawyer Howard Levitt.

"What he was interested in … was reputation protection and vindication," Levitt said in an interview.

Dornan, who had served as interim Horizon president and CEO for about seven months, agreed to take on the role permanently to serve the public and to advance health care in New Brunswick — and took a pay cut to do so, Levitt said. 

He gave up his previous positions as regional chief of staff and internal medicine specialist at the Saint John Regional Hospital.

"And then he had his reputation essentially assailed by the government for something he had nothing to do with," Levitt  said.

During the news conference, when Higgs also dropped Dorothy Shephard as health minister and removed the boards of both Horizon and Vitalité, he cited a growing health-care crisis that included the "traumatizing" death of a patient July 12 in the waiting room of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital's emergency department.

Witness John Staples told CBC News the man, a senior, had been waiting alone in a wheelchair, in visible discomfort, for hours when he appeared to fall asleep. It was only during a routine check of people in the waiting room that a hospital employee realized the man had stopped breathing, he said.

Levitt alleged that Higgs's comments made "it look as if somehow, John Dornan, who of course had nothing to do with what happened in those few hours in that hospital ward, four months after taking the job permanently, was somehow responsible.