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Rogers Communications must pay $ 75,000 in damages to a former employee he asked the police to arrest at his office, ruled a Quebec judge, denouncing the apparent desire of the company to "gum" in front of 100 colleagues.
Eight years ago this week, eight Montreal police officers forcibly arrested Joseph Nbadr at his desk in what was a member of the Rogers business investigations team at the time. described as "show", a customer service representative who uses Kijiji to sell a smartphone that he claims to have stolen from work.
Nbadr, whom Rogers subsequently dismissed, was acquitted by a court and later sued Rogers (but not the police), arguing that the manner in which he was arrested deprived him of his dignity and caused him harm. considerable. He had learned that Rogers, hoping to warn other employees against fraud, had wanted to make an example of it when he had surprised a co-worker in his new job – l & # 39; 39, former investigator of the company Rogers, who, by chance, had joined the same company – openly telling the facts. story.
The episode gave Nbadr a panic attack, one of the consequences he attributes to the arrest.
In a decision rendered on November 20, Quebec Superior Court Judge Sylvain Lussier called Nbadr's arrest "illegal and abusive" and awarded Rogers damages for moral and punitive damages.
"If the (Nbadr) conduct may have justified warnings or disciplinary measures, if it were confirmed, it would certainly not justify a public show of force and humiliation worthy of a clbadic western film .
"Although (Nbadr's) conduct may have justified warnings or disciplinary measures, if confirmed, it would certainly not justify a public show of force and humiliation worthy of a clbadic western film" , wrote Lussier. "There was no need for publicly tar and feather Joseph Nbadr."
Rogers' wish that the police arrest Nbadr was born of a meeting at a Montreal restaurant on November 24, 2010, during which Nbadr sold a BlackBerry Torch to a private investigator that the company had hired. The investigator paid Nbadr $ 550 in cash and received the phone in a box, which he then returned to Rogers.
Rogers' corporate investigation unit, believing the phone belonged to the company, asked the Montreal police to stop Nbadr at work to inform his colleagues of the robbery charge. The detectives agreed, leaving Rogers investigators "very excited".
On the morning of November 26, 2010, four uniformed officers and four detectives went to Nbadr's office and handcuffed him to his office while he was eating an apple. Nbadr fell to the ground while he was restrained and hurtled down the stairs while the police escorted him outside.
When the police searched her apartment, she seized cell phones, her girlfriend's computer and the equivalent amount, in cash, of what he had been paid for the Black Torch – an intoxicated detainee urinated on Nbadr in a shared cell of the police station. Nbadr was released that night and went home to find his damaged doorway, his torn sofa and his dog stuck in a closet.
It's really a justification for him
Rogers sent Nbadr back shortly thereafter. Another company hired him in the weeks that followed, but, he later said, the consequences of the arrest tarnished his life in many ways.
Nbadr says he's "spent in hibernation" for two years. His relationship broke down and he suffered from intimacy and sleep problems. He stopped talking to former colleagues and no longer went to the church, where people were whispering about him or the gym. He took 60 pounds before losing 100 pounds. He was the victim of panic attacks at work, where he inadvertently discovered the role of his former employer in his arrest when the former Rogers investigator mentioned it.
In his decision, Lussier found that Nbadr's arrest was not warranted because the police should have served him a subpoena rather than detaining him. He also wrote that Rogers had abused his right to inform the police of an alleged crime by seeking Nbadr's arrest during a "show of force."
Reflecting on the sale of the BlackBerry Torch that led to the arrest of Nbadr, Lussier wrote that it remained "far to be clear that the phone had been" stolen "." Nbadr said that he had warned an acquaintance who was waiting for the late delivery of a Rogers phone to order another phone and return first on his arrival, claiming that he had sold the first phone via Kijiji to cover the resulting cancellation fees.
Lussier ordered Rogers to pay Nbadr $ 45,000 in moral damages and $ 25,000 in punitive damages, plus $ 5,000 for a counterclaim filed by Rogers that he would deem unreasonable.
Since Nbadr's arrest, Rogers has adopted a policy to prevent police from entering his workplace to talk to his employees.
"We regret the developments eight years ago because it does not reflect the way we are dealing with these issues and we have taken steps to prevent this from happening," Rogers said in a statement. .
The Montreal police did not respond in a timely manner to requests for comment.
Muriel Librati, one of Nbadr's lawyers, said his client was delighted.
"It's really a justification for him," she said.
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @nickmfaris
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