Qulliq Energy’s second employee lawsuit this month goes to trial

At the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit, Qulliq Energy Corporation faces its second lawsuit in as many weeks from another former employee. Amy Hynes alleges that she was forced to resign from her job as corporate secretary in 2010, when the corporation diminished her position. (FILE PHOTO)

Qulliq Energy Corp. is back in the Nunavut Court of Justice this week, facing its second lawsuit of the month from a second former employee.

Amy Hynes, who served at no fewer than three different positions within the company’s head office over seven years, alleges she was forced to quit when her employer removed most responsibilities from her position as corporate secretary, and refused to negotiate a severance package.

Hynes, 36, is claiming general and punitive damages for breach of contract and constructive dismissal, starting at $600,000, stemming from circumstances that led to her resignation in January 2010.

Qulliq lawyer Richard Beamish counters that Hynes did not give “reasonable notice” when she resigned.

Hynes’ case comes after the lawsuit of Sarah Kucera, who alleged wrongful dismissal in a weeklong trial that ended June 14. Justice Susan Cooper said she planned to give a written decision on that case later.

Hynes’ seven years with Qulliq in Iqaluit began in 2003, when she quickly worked her way up from a customer service manager position in the winter, to corporate secretary in the fall, the court presided over by Justice Earl Johnson heard.

In her primary role as corporate secretary, Hynes reported to the chair of the board of directors, and was responsible for handling all correspondence and notes for board meetings. Various other duties included maintenance of corporate records, liaison to the territorial minister responsible for the corporation, and preparation of all notes for the minister at legislative sittings, and support to the president and chief executive officer.

As secretary, Hynes gave administrative support to five president-CEOs in six years, including the current president, Peter Mackey, in 2009. Her fortunes with the company started to sink in April that year, when Qulliq advertised an opening for the position of executive assistant to the president and CEO, she said.

“The posting described the majority of the functions that I was doing on a daily basis,” Hynes said. “I was concerned for the overall safety and security of my job.”

“Why?” asked her lawyer Phillip Hunt, who also defended Hynes’ former co-worker Kucera in her lawsuit.

“I felt this was my job (in the posting),” she said, adding that the job ad listed more than half of her responsibilities.

“I was unsure what it left to me.”

When Hynes brought up the matter with Mackey, who had just taken on the role of president and CEO that month, “he just dismissed it and told me not to worry about it,” she said.

“I took him for his word.”

According to subpoenaed documents, in June 2009, the chair of Qulliq’s board, Simon Merkosak, and other officials at the company discussed Hynes’ loss of duties a the new up-and-and-coming executive assistant position that Kucera would fill in July.

Noting that an internal auditor position was vacant, the group discussed the possibility of combining Hynes’ shrunken corporate assistant role with the internal audit posting.

Merkosak was quoted in correspondence saying the solution would “kill two birds with one stone,” Hunt noted.

Wayne Solomon, chair of the board’s finance and audit committee, told Hynes he was in support of her applying for the internal audit position.

Solomon proposed that the president could appoint Hynes to the position directly, provided her background suited the position. Solomon and Hynes then corresponded to create a job description that would suit Hynes’ profile.

Hunt noted that direct appointments require approval from the territorial government, and Hynes confirmed she was aware of this and believed it could be accomplished in her case. Meanwhile, to ensure she was qualified for the posting of internal auditor, the company arranged training courses for Hynes in Ottawa, to be taken in November.

Plans to take the tailor-made position fell through in October, when Mackey told Hynes she would have to apply for the new position in a competition. This would have to wait until she completed training courses in November.

“I was devastated,” Hynes said. “I had just spent the past five months working on this new posting and now I was being told I was not getting it, and I had no idea why.”

Under her lawyer’s advice, Hynes wrote back to the president that she refused to apply for the new job.

Mackey did not answer or acknowledge the letter, leaving Hynes to work in her diminished role with fewer hours. Kucera eventually took on Hynes’ remaining duties as corporate secretary, on top of her regular duties as executive assistant.

“By the end of November what was your personal sense of what your status was at the organization?” Hunt asked.

“I felt my position was threatened,” Hynes said, to the point where she started making plans to leave her job and Iqaluit for good.

Under legal counsel from Hunt in December, she concluded that she had been constructively dismissed. Hynes communicated this to the company through her lawyer, and said she was ready to enter into negotiations for a termination package.

The company refused, stating it was expecting her to get back to work. Following time off for Christmas holidays, and a certificate for medical leave due to high blood pressure brought on by stress, Hynes eventually sent her resignation to the company on Jan. 21, 2010.

The trial’s opening day June 17 finished with Beamish’s cross-examination of Hynes. Witnesses will take the stand June 18, in a trial that is expected to run all week.