Don’t bully or threaten the boss 

“…after her employment was terminated for refusing to undergo a background check, the defendant embarked on an email campaign with her former employer that culminated in threats and conduct akin to extortion.  The defendant told the plaintiffs that if they didn’t settle with her and pay a significant sum of money by a certain date, she would issue a long and detailed press release disclosing the plaintiffs’ confidential business methods and disparaging their business reputation.” 

In the Canadian case of Ceridian Canada Ltd.v Azeezodeen the employee made threats against her employer after being terminated.  As a result, the  employer, Ceridiam Canada, obtained a five-day ex parte injunction prohibiting Ms. Azeezodeen from publishing the press release.  But that did not stop her from carrying out her threat.  The press release was issued and the employer’s confidential information was widely disseminated over the Internet by a number of news outlets.  The court concluded that Ms. Azeezodeen “knowingly and deliberately” breached the terms of the injunction order by: 

·           Releasing the enjoined document to press agencies; 

·           Making absolutely no effort to stop this public release despite the pleas and offers of assistance from the plaintiffs; and 

·           Failing to provide the plaintiffs with the list of persons to whom she had disclosed the confidential information. 

The former employee was found to be in contempt of the injunction order for obvious reasons. 

In a decision imposing a 20-day sentence, the court said: 

…. The defendant is an intelligent and articulate individual.  She also appears to be on a self-proclaimed mission not only to vindicate her ‘wrongful dismissal’ but also the rights of her co-workers.  Her preferred method is akin to extortion – demands for payment of a monetary settlement, initially pegged at $23.2 million then reduced to $500,000, coupled with threats that she will ‘go public’ with the plaintiffs’ confidential business information if the settlement amount is not paid by a certain date.  When the plaintiffs obtained a Court Order prohibiting her from doing so, she ignored it and disseminated the confidential information across the Internet.  And then, in the days and weeks that followed, she continued to protest the validity of the Order and denied that she breached it. 

In my nine years as a judge of this court, I have never encountered a more defiant or less remorseful defendant.  Her breach of the Court Order was serious and, in my view, deserves a significant sanction.  … 

Why not a fine?  Costs awarded at the time (amounting to more than $25,000) had not been paid and probably would never be paid as Ms. Azeezodeen was clear that she had no assets and had “nothing to lose”.  Although Ms. Azeezodeen had another job, she was a single parent providing for four children, one in university.  Her employment would go completely or almost completely for the family’s living expenses.  The court was satisfied that she could not pay and that a fine was not appropriate. 

So it's important to recognise that Ms. Azeezodeen was probably not sent to jail for breaching confidentiality, nor for defamation but rather because she published the press release despite a judge having ordered her not to.