Court document claims fired employee ended up with Sault CAO's confidential e-mails

GUELPH - A lawsuit claims that a man suing the City of Guelph for wrongful dismissal was given thousands of emails from the private work email belonging to Sault Ste. Marie Chief Administrative Officer Al Horsman when he worked in Guelph.

The court document claims those emails include a confidential exchange between Horsman and a hiring firm about the Sault CAO job, including a Power Point presentation.

The documents filed in a Guelph court are part of a wrongful dismissal lawsuit by former City of Guelph building operations manager Bruce Poole.

The court filing claims that other emails, many of them listed as confidential and private, include everything from performance reviews of city employees, internal criticism of city staff, details of in-camera legal matters and even personal emails regarding marital and health issues.

Poole is suing the City of Guelph for $1 million for wrongful dismissal.

He claims that in total 53,000 email and calendar items taken from Horsman's city email were put on a USB stick and given to him as part of the discovery process in his wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

The court filing does not contain specific details of those emails but does list 94 of the subject matters now in possession of the fired employee.

Poole was let go by the city in August 2015.

None of the claims filed in court have been proven and the defendant has not yet responded to the most recent filing.

That court document states that the information later itemized by Poole was taken from the "calendar," "recoverable items" and "deleted items" folders of Horsman's city email account spanning a number of years.

Those three folders contained 11,000 emails/calendar entries and 5,000 attached documents, the motion says.

"The majority (estimated 98 per cent) of these 16,000 (estimated) emails, calendar entries and attached documents in Mr. Horsman's personal Outlook account are not related or connected whatsoever to my legal action against the city or to the intended scope of documentary discovery agreed upon in the Discovery Plan," Poole's motion states.

Poole lists some of the subject matter of the emails and calendar entries he was given as part of his argument that the city is not being totally cooperative under an agreed upon Discovery Plan between the two parties.

The court filing says emails given Poole include:
    •    30 individual staff performance reviews
    •    confidential emails between Horsman and his bank regarding personal investments
    •    confidential e-mail exchange between Horsman and then-Guelph CAO Anne Pappert regarding concerns about the performance of a senior city manager still with the city
    •    copies of numerous confidential city reports
    •    "Numerous occurrences where Al Horsman was using the City of Guelph's computer system to seek and respond to several new and alternative job opportunities"
    •    "Confidential and private e-mail exchange (with attached Power Point presentation) between Al Horsman and an external consulting firm in regards to an employment opportunity (Chief Administrative Officer for Al Horsman at the City of Sault Ste. Marie"
    •    several emails detailing confidential terms of settlements in several legal matters
    •    private and personal emails between Horsman and other executive staff members in regards to personal matters such as marriage and health
    •    copies of confidential information shared by Horsman with former city staff
    •    "confidential e-mail exchange between Corporate finance staff and senior management staff in regards to DGBA (financial concerns with the Downtown Guelph Board Association)"