Ex-officer’s suit against police tossed

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This article was published 14/03/2025 (235 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a former Winnipeg police officer who claimed she had to retire early after her complaint about being denied a transfer spawned a toxic workplace.

Belinda Duncan, who joined the police service in 2000 and worked until her early retirement in April 2022, filed the suit in June 2023.

Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Associate Judge Jennifer Goldenberg struck Duncan’s statement of claim in its entirety and declined to grant her leave to file an appeal.

“The claim is an abuse of the process of the court,” Goldenberg wrote in the decision issued last week.

Duncan claimed she was wrongly passed over, in favour of junior officers, after she applied to be transferred to the community relations diversity section in 2017. She maintained complaints against her, as well as her complaints, were not handled properly.

She claimed she was subjected to intolerable working conditions at police headquarters.

Duncan’s lawsuit said a workplace complaint against her — over allegations she had spread rumours about an officer who had been assigned to the unit — was upheld.

Another complaint from Bonnie Emerson, the commander of the community support unit, who had accused her of disrespectful and insubordinate behaviour, was dismissed, Duncan’s court filings said.

Duncan filed an internal police appeal in relation to the decision not to transfer her in 2018. One year later, she filed a complaint with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission in which she argued the police chief’s decision not to transfer her, a Black woman, was discrimination.

The commission dismissed the complaint in 2021, considering she had been in discussion with the Winnipeg Police Association union about the issues and the issues fell into the overlapping jurisdiction between the labour board and the commission.

Duncan filed an application with the Manitoba Labour Board in May 2022 in which she claimed the police union had breached its duty to fairly represent her and had committed an unfair labour practice.

The labour board disagreed. In September 2022, the board concluded the union had considered the strength of her complaint and provided a fair opinion by declining to file a grievance.

“There is no suggestion that its conduct was in any way discriminatory, arbitrary or in bad faith,” the labour board found.

In court and at the labour board, the police service denied Duncan had been constructively dismissed.

Goldenberg found Duncan did not include any facts about the alleged intolerable work conditions to which she claimed to have been a victim.

Duncan then filed for a review of the labour board’s decision but that was dismissed by the labour board in January 2023.

Instead of filing an application for a Court of King’s Bench judge to review those decisions, she chose to file a lawsuit.

Doug Brown, the chief lawyer for the City of Winnipeg, applied to have Duncan’s lawsuit tossed out of court, arguing in 2023 that the statement of claim did not disclose a sufficient legal basis for the court to hear it, and that it contained scandalous and vexatious allegations.

Goldenberg ruled that Duncan should have applied for a judicial review instead of filing a lawsuit.

“The claim is an improper attempt to have this court reconsider the (human rights commission) dismissal and the (labour board) reconsideration dismissal and is a collateral attack on those decisions,” said Goldenberg.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca