AHS claims fired CEO broke employment contract by retaining emails

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Alberta Health Services is claiming its former CEO sent nearly a dozen emails containing confidential information to herself the day before her firing — in breach of her employment agreement and giving her employers “just cause” to terminate her.

On Wednesday, Sean Chilton, AHS senior vice-president of clinical operations, filed a sworn statement claiming Athana Mentzelopoulos improperly forwarded 11 emails to her personal Hotmail account one day before her Jan. 8 firing.

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Chilton said AHS learned on March 19 that Mentzelopoulos “had forwarded a number of emails from her AHS email account to her personal email account.” He filed an affidavit Wednesday seeking to amend AHS’ statement of defence to allege Mentzelopoulos’ use of the emails was a fireable offence.

“As the senior most officer of AHS and knowing the express terms of her employment agreement prohibited the use of AHS confidential information outside of her employment, she was in breach of her employment agreement,” the proposed addition reads.

“As a result of this decision, AHS states that it had acquired just cause to terminate the plaintiff’s employment.”

Mentzelopoulos ‘denies any misuse’

Dan Scott, Mentzelopoulos’ lawyer, said his client did nothing wrong.

“Ms. Mentzelopoulos sent emails to herself late in the afternoon of Jan. 7 while she was still the CEO and president of AHS,” he said in an email. “She then sent an email to the auditor general’s office at 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 8 with additional information and was terminated from AHS later that same morning on a Zoom call.  She completely denies any misuse of the information in the emails, and she continues to co-operate with the auditor general’s investigation.”

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AHS is also seeking an injunction to prevent Mentzelopoulos from using any of the emails. According to an AHS summary, the emails dealt with chartered surgical facilities and a pair of freedom of information requests regarding MHCare, one of the companies alleged to have received an inflated contract.

AHS claims the emails contain information that was protected by solicitor-client privilege, as well as “contain confidential information, privileged information, and business records pursuant to the employment agreement, which the respondent agreed to return to AHS upon her termination.”

It noted the Globe and Mail later published articles saying it had “‘obtained’ documents related to the subject matter.”

Emails on chartered surgical facilities, FOI requests

The emails were all sent between 4:30 p.m. and 4:58 p.m. on Jan. 7, according to the court filings.

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They included two letters regarding chartered surgical facilities, two regarding the release of a freedom of information package, one regarding a legal opinion on the “impact of recent directives/orders,” and one with the subject line “interesting article,” among others.

The 11 emails are also included in the public court filings but are redacted except for the sender, recipient, subject line, attachment titles, and timestamps.

In the filing, AHS says unredacted copies will be made available to the court when the application is heard “under appropriate protections for the confidential and privileged information.”

Scott stated Mentzelopoulos did not share any emails with the Globe and Mail and noted the subject matter of the emails differed from the contents of the two stories from the newspaper, copies of which were included in AHS’ court filing.

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He cautioned that the order AHS is seeking could force Mentzelopoulos to disclose what she may have given to the auditor general and RCMP, both of which are among the six investigations that are underway into her claims.

AHS and Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange are listed as defendants in Mentzelopoulos’ $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

They have claimed Mentzelopoulos was sacked because she was incompetent and stonewalling critical health reforms while being distracted by pursuing an investigation into wrongdoing that had not produced any results.

Mentzelopoulos has since claimed she was wrongfully terminated to stop her from investigating sweetheart deals and high-level political interference in multimillion-dollar health procurement contracts.

In separate court filings, Mentzelopoulos has claimed that her work had been praised by LaGrange and that suggestions she was fired for failing to meet the job’s expectations were “vindictive and malicious.”

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The office of Justice Minister Mickey Amery declined further comment, citing how the matter was before the courts.

None of the claims from AHS, LaGrange, or Mentzelopoulos have been tested in court.

— with files from The Canadian Press

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