Westjet cover up: Alleged sexual assaults by pilot

[Rockie]

Photofly

Where are you getting copies of the the court filings, and where are you getting detailed information on internal emails and personnel file material?

[Old fella]

Maybe she had it in her mind WJ would settle out of court. Perhaps they just may do that as regardless of the WJ statement and the several pages on this employee, it WILL BE IN THE PUBLIC domain if court action proceeds and her defense will have just as many pages, perhaps more. Don't think either party will come out vindicated. The person involved by the looks certainly wasn't a model employee and there were difficulties, what WJ indicated can't be all wrong and made up. Conversely when Sexual harassment/incidents come up it is very serious and others have come forward and indicated this activity does indeed go on, can they also be all wrong.......... Scrape through the thin veneer of the "WestJetters Culture" and there are certainly some warts and a spot or two of cancer. WJ the company that it is and is a good one will clean up the mess and move on. I will go out on a limb and say an out of court settlement!!

[Rockie]

Photofly

Where are you getting copies of the the court filings, and where are you getting detailed information on internal emails and personnel file material?

Never mind...found it.

[photofly]

Photofly

Where are you getting copies of the the court filings, and where are you getting detailed information on internal emails and personnel file material?

The Statement of Claim was linked to in this thread (page 2, I think). The Statement of Defence is linked to here:
http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 06#p961398

I don't have any information about internal emails or personnel file material - detailed, or otherwise.

Are you wondering why I can be confident that M's punishment will not be recorded in Lewis's file?

I know the model policy published by the Canada HRC to which I linked earlier states to the effect that if a complaint of harassment is investigated and cannot be substantiated then no record of it will be kept on the alleged perpetrator's file.

It also says that complainants are not entitled to be told in detail what, if any, punitive action is taken against the person about whom they complained.

Since she is entitled to see her own personnel file, it would be a breach of M's privacy for any details that Lewis isn't entitled to see to be recorded there.

[Rockie]

Well, if half the stuff in Westjet's filing is true Ms. Lewis is the author of her own employment problems. But there are two or three sides to every story and I doubt we'll hear it all. I note that contrary to Westjet's public comments in the press there is nothing in their statement of defence stating fraternization is inappropriate and against company policy.

[photofly]

There's a comment about M being disciplined for excessive fraternisation and thereby being "unprofessional" I find that somewhat tautological - excessive anything is ... unwelcome.

I totally agree that this is as good as it gets for Westjet. Just like the Statement of Claim is for Ms. Lewis.

[plhought]

...Having said that, this particular commentary(IP access) hasn't been mentioned in Canadian MSM at least I didn't see it...

Ya, it really is a different issue - Kinda warrants it's own thread.

Mind you - I'm not too sure how reliable this The Tyee is. But I guess this stuff would be hard to make up.

[FenceSitter]

...Having said that, this particular commentary(IP access) hasn't been mentioned in Canadian MSM at least I didn't see it...

Ya, it really is a different issue - Kinda warrants it's own thread.

Mind you - I'm not too sure how reliable this The Tyee is. But I guess this stuff would be hard to make up.

There's a legal mechanism called the 'Norwich Order' which has been used extensively over the last several years. It is described as follows.... "Norwich order is a pre-action discovery mechanism that compels a third party to provide certain information in its possession. They allow victims of alleged fraud to access potentially relevant information from third parties, such as financial institutions. Norwich orders have been granted to identify the wrongdoer, locate and preserve evidence, or trace and preserve assets. The underlying fundamental principal behind such orders is that an innocent third party who unknowingly assisted the wrongful action has an equitable duty to assist the applicant in attaining his or her legal rights. Courts have granted Norwich relief where the applicant believes it has been defrauded and seeks access to bank records to prove the fraud and recover the wrongfully-obtained property. Applications for Norwich orders can be made ex parte.

The order is named after the House of Lords 1974 law case in which it was developed and followed."

In this particular situation it would appear that his IP address would have been the outcome, however an IP address does not identify an individual. "Even if this IP address is located within a residence, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence’s computer..." . That comes from a ruling in 2013 in Florida. An interesting article on IP ownership and identification was in Maclean's a few years back as well... http://www.macleans.ca/society/technolo ... -a-person/ .
Maybe he left it open to create plausible deniability, maybe it was protected and he really did do it, maybe it was unprotected and someone with a dislike for what he was doing or who he is used the connection to set him up. Who knows? This is much like the sexual assault allegations whereby he is innocent until proven guilty with the burden of proof being on the accuser. Either way, it seems to be at the 'he said/she said' level which requires professional investigation and intervention to come to a conclusion.

I hope that both mentioned actions are dealt with very expediently. There is no need to drag it on and litigate anyone to death here. Simply present the respective cases to the courts and get to a decision as soon as possible. It is only then that WJ will be able to leave this in the past and continue on to rebuilding a bigger and better brand than they had before. I truly believe that they are capable of that. Everyone deserves a second chance, and if it wasn't for the corporate espionage incidents before I would say that applies to WJ here but unfortunately it doesn't. Whether they deserve it or not I believe WJ will have a 3rd chance at becoming the preferred airline in Canada and hopefully they learn their lesson from their past mistakes... if those mistakes have actually been made.

I agree that this could use it's own thread... the IP stuff. If one opens could my comment be moved over there? I am new.

[brooks]

WestJet's injured reputation healing nicely

Les MacPherson, Saskatoon StarPhoenix;

I like WestJet, a proudly western Canadian company that seems genuinely to care about its passengers. Also, I despise Air Canada and automatically root for the competition.

I almost took it personally, then, when WestJet was so horribly smeared the other week by a disgruntled former flight attendant. Mandy Lewis, in a lawsuit filed in B.C. and sympathetically promoted in the media, claims she was sexually assaulted by a WestJet pilot on a layover in Hawaii. WestJet, she alleges, fired her for complaining while protecting the pilot, who still is flying for the airline. CBC reported that charges in Hawaii were pending against the pilot, but WestJet had since steered him away from that jurisdiction.

To me, at least, this seemed way out of character for WestJet. My own experience on many WestJet flights suggested employee morale is high. I once sat beside an off-duty flight attendant who then was flying home to Saskatoon as a passenger. She was exhausted, too, after just finishing a long shift. Even so, after takeoff, she was up and helping her on-duty colleagues with cabin service. They were short-staffed, she explained later, when, just before we landed, she finally got back to her seat.

Typical, I was told later by another WestJet employee I happen to know. Company culture is to help out.

My impression of a happy workplace was reinforced by pilots routinely emerging from the cockpit between flights to help attendants with cabin grooming, and also by successive, failed attempts to unionize WestJet employees. This would be among the last companies I would expect to fire an employee for complaining of sexual assault.

The one discordant note in the aggrieved flight attendant’s narrative was that her dismissal and lawsuit came six years after the alleged assault. Maybe it took that long to reach her breaking point. Or maybe we weren’t hearing the whole story.

We still don’t have the whole story, but we have a whole other side of it after WestJet responded this week to Lewis’ shocking claim. According to the airline, Lewis was fired after being disciplined eight times for misconduct, two instances of which led to cancelled flights. In one case she missed her shift, in another she was deemed unfit to work after consuming alcohol. She missed other shifts as well, failed to give a boarding announcement and shared company computer passwords.

When she was reprimanded for failing to read employee directives, she mocked the airline on her Facebook page and made a virtue of never reading company directives. On her blog, she described WestJet passengers as “assholes.” This was just three months after employees were advised individually, by letter, to always be respectful online and not discuss WestJet business.

WestJet says Lewis’ 2010 complaint about sexual assault was resolved at the time to the best of the company’s ability, and apparently to her satisfaction. She did not raise it again until after she was let go for other reasons six years later. WestJet could not confirm that a sexual assault had occurred, but the pilot was disciplined by not being allowed to fly international routes, including to Hawaii. Sheltering him from charges had nothing to do with it, according to the airline.

That certainly is easier to believe than the claim that WestJet knowingly employed and sheltered a pilot wanted for sexual assault in another country.

None of this means that Lewis was not sexually assaulted or that WestJet properly dealt with her assault allegation, only that there were perfectly good and entirely unrelated reasons for firing her. She was a problem employee almost from her first day on the job, two years before the alleged sexual assault. Her lamentable employment record casts enough doubt on her story to restore at least provisionally my confidence in WestJet.

Lewis still can have her day in court, of course, where evidence taken under oath often paints quite a different picture. I just don’t see how she can argue she did not deserve to be fired. Those whose flights were cancelled when she couldn’t get to work sober or on time would likely testify otherwise.

[photofly]

I'm still waiting for all the news organizations (are you listening, CBC?) that splashed this story front page and centre when it was about a brilliant woman being sacked for complaining about harassment to give it the same prominence now it's turned into a story about a lazy gobshite being sacked for not turning up for work.

[CpnCrunch]

I'm still waiting for all the news organizations (are you listening, CBC?) that splashed this story front page and centre when it was about a brilliant woman being sacked for complaining about harassment to give it the same prominence now it's turned into a story about a lazy gobshite being sacked for not turning up for work.

I had a look, and the story is covered on both CBC and CTV's news websites. Are you saying they have to do equal length special news stories about westjet's response, just to make sure they've sufficiently wrecked her reputation? I don't think that is really necessary or useful. She seems to have wrecked her own reputation.

[photofly]

Well, she built herself up and they colluded. You don't think they owe Westjet any kind of prominence at all with their side of the story? Recall this was the lead story on the TV evening news and no1 on the website for at least a day. When it was her being wronged.

[Rockie]

Facebook posts aren't as newsworthy as sexual assault allegations no matter who the news organization. But if you're looking for equal time reporting, today the CBC has been all about a certain acquittal....that they'd rather just forget and never mention again.

[mbav8r]

People seem to be forgetting a crucial part to her story, the reason she brought it up after six years was because another flight attendant told a similar story about the same pilot from even before Ms. Lewis's alleged assault. I know I'd be livid if I found out my assault was the second offence for this offender and it would also be reasonable to assume they were protecting this pilot.
If it is in fact true, pilot M is flying to Maui, maybe a good samaritin who knows who Pilot M is could let the Maui police know, then he could have his day in court.
I still think there is another shoe to drop, when the facts are presented from the other six or eight flight attendants who were also allegedly assaulted, would be quite the story if it turns out to have been perpetrated by pilot M.
It appears if WJ statement of defence is true, they could have fired her long ago which begs the question, why didn't they?

[photofly]

People seem to be forgetting a crucial part to her story, the reason she brought it up after six years was because another flight attendant told a similar story about the same pilot from even before Ms. Lewis's alleged assault. I know I'd be livid if I found out my assault was the second offence for this offender and it would also be reasonable to assume they were protecting this pilot.

Then the appropriate thing to do at that time would be to make that dissatisfaction known to the company. She didn't do that. Which casts doubt on her entire story. Is there any other evidence from then that she was unhappy? any blog posts? Facebook posts? I don't think so.

I still think there is another shoe to drop, when the facts are presented from the other six or eight flight attendants who were also allegedly assaulted, would be quite the story if it turns out to have been perpetrated by pilot M.

If an allegation is made against you, is investigated, and cannot be substantiated - then you are entitled that no record is kept against you of that allegation and that you are not disadvantaged in the future by that allegation having been made. Historic allegations of misconduct are not admissible as evidence that you did anything wrong this time.

It appears if WJ statement of defence is true, they could have fired her long ago which begs the question, why didn't they?

That's a meaningless question. This situation could have arisen at any time because they could have sacked her at any time; she could still have raised the same allegations, and you would still be asking "why didn't they sack her long ago?". They just picked her insubordinate email as the last straw.

It really does appear that the whole assault thing was settled years ago and now is just being used, after she was sacked for cause, to try to get money.

[rigpiggy]

In other news gian gomeshi was found not guilty. They pretty much savaged the complainants for a constantly changing story. Yes he is a bit of a douchebag

[plhought]

...Historic allegations of misconduct are not admissible as evidence that you did anything wrong this time...

Is there a specific precedent for that? I'm pretty sure a couple hours on CanLii and one could find precedent arguing the opposite. One example off the top of my head is the recently deposed Canadian Olympic Committee head.

[photofly]

In criminal cases, prior convictions aren't usually permitted to be mentioned because they prejudice the jury and - for example - the fact that I was already convicted of the murder of four people isn't evidence that I murdered someone in an unconnected fifth case. I believe if I call character witnesses who say I'm actually a choir boy and of previous good character the prosecution may be allowed to refute that evidence with my convictions but in that case, I would have brought it upon myself. That being the case, I can't see that evidence of previous acquittals would help the prosecution: they can't really argue that well, I got off the first four times so I must be guilty on the fifth set of charges.


In respect not of convictions but of one allegation providing evidence of the truth of another, here's what the trial judge in the very recent Ghomeshi verdict had to say (http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2 ... cision.pdf)

[127] Similar act evidence is presumptively inadmissible. Evidence of an
accused's alleged propensity to commit the particular type of crime with which he
is charged with is inadmissible. The Crown expressly agreed that each complaint
contained in the Information before the Court must be determined on its own
merits.

As far as I understand it, presumptively inadmissible would mean the prosecution could argue special circumstances where it should be admissible, but generally not.



Of course a company investigation into harassment doesn't have to meet the same burden of proof as a criminal trial to find the complaint to be true nor does it have to obey the same strict rules of evidence. But it does have to be fair to the person being investigated and it has to reach a reasonable conclusion based on evidence. The level of proof (according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission) depends on the seriousness of the accusation and the seriousness of the penalty that would be applied.

Here's an extract from the CHRC's sample policy on harassment:(http://www.ccdp-chrc.gc.ca/sites/defaul ... e_en_1.pdf)

3.5.7 Unsubstantiated complaints
If a person, in good faith, files a harassment complaint
that is not supported by evidence gathered
during an investigation, that complaint will be
dismissed, and no record of it will be put in the
accused harasser’s file. As long as the complaint
was made in good faith, there will be no penalty
to the person who complained, and no record in
her or his file.

That's not law - it's only a 'model' policy. But given its source it would be hard to argue that policy was unreasonable, wrong or unlawful. if I was sacked because a second complaint against me was made - which could not be substantiated in its own right - yet the basis for my dismissal was that because it was a second complaint there must be some truth in it - I think I would have a fair shot at a claim for unfair dismissal.

[land3]

Second lawsuit filed against WJ:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3520515

[photofly]

If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you don't have the facts or the law, pound the table.