EDMONTON -- A three-judge panel from the Court of Appeal of Alberta has reinstated a former correctional officer's arbitration award of one year's salary following his dismissal in November of 2015. 

The ruling is the latest in a series of court judgments regarding Todd Ross, who was suspended and later fired by Alberta Justice for comments made to CTV News regarding a leaked video that showed an inmate attacking a correctional officer.

Two of the three judges ruled that Ross was entitled to his initial arbitrator award of a year's salary which had been previously thrown out by Court of Queen's Bench judge.

"With respect to whether there was just cause for termination of the employment, we quash the decision of the chambers judge and restore the decision ... that there was not just cause for the termination," reads the majority opinion of Justices Ritu Khullar and Elizabeth Hughes. 

"The arbitration award is reinstated in its entirety."

On April 21, 2015, CTV News obtained surveillance footage from the Edmonton Remand Centre showing an inmate walking towards an officer behind a desk and throwing hot water on him before jabbing him with a broom. 

CTV News showed the leaked video to Todd Ross, who had been working as a correctional officer for close to 30 years and had raised concerns about safety at the new Remand Centre in the past.

“It’s a shocking video. There’s a lot of violence that happens daily in the jail,” Ross said in the interview at the time. "What are waiting for? An officer may have been killed." 

HISTORY OF APPEALS

Ross was first suspended for three days for criticizing his employer in the media and for claiming he had faced discipline for raising health and safety issues. 

He was then fired in November of 2015 after Alberta Justice determined he had been dishonest in interviews during an investigation probing how the video was leaked.  

Through his union, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), Ross appealed his dismissal to a workplace arbitrator. 

In March of 2017, the arbitrator sided with Ross, ruling that while he had been dishonest in some of the investigation interviews, the employer had "made out a case for discipline, but not termination."

The arbitrator awarded Ross one year's salary in lieu of reinstatement, concluding that "the employment relationship was no longer viable."

The case was further appealed to the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench where a judge overturned that award, siding with the employer in finding that "the only legally permissible conclusion was that termination was appropriate." 

DISSENTING OPINION 

Justice J.A. Wakeling disagreed with the two other judges on the panel. 

In a dissenting opinion, Wakeling argued that while Ross's comments about his workplace were protected speech for a union representative, his dishonesty in investigative interviews made the arbitrator's award of a year's salary unreasonable. 

"The fact that Mr. Ross lied before [the arbitrator] confirmed the complete absence of any reason for the arbitrator to exercise his discretion in favour of Mr. Ross," Wakeling wrote in a dissenting opinion. 

A dissenting opinion grants the province an automatic right to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. 

With files from Angela Jung