Pilot awarded record $3 milling for defamation
After seven days of fighting to clear his name, an ex-pilot has been awarded the largest defamation award in Canadian history.
SkyService Airlines fired Rick Fennimore in November 2001. SkyService claimed that it received a call alleging that Fennimore was seen at a Halifax party with a drink in his hand less than seven hours before a flight – a violation of Canadian law as well as the company’s policy.
Fennimore said he wasn’t even at the party. He was denied an opportunity to refute the allegations and was summarily dismissed. He had no success in obtaining similar employment elsewhere.
The allegations – which were made in front of other pilots, repeated when Fennimore applied for government employment insurance and restated to a potential employer – were never proven. The jury based the award on evidence that Fennimore lost more than $800,000 in wages in the seven years since he was fired. The jury also heard that the amount of lost wages would have exceeded $3 million, assuming he had worked as a pilot until he was 65.
“I started crying. It was like having a 700-pound gorilla taken off your back after years of fighting”, Fennimore said. “None of it was true. There was never any basis to any of it.” A pilot for 20 years, Fennimore now works as an IT consultant in Ottawa. The $3 million award was more than double the previous largest award.
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