Lied on Resume but Sued for Wrongful Dismissal Anyway

One fake MBA. One real lawsuit. One unforgettable lesson. 

In this episode Gavin and Stephen dig into the Alberta employment case Tutor v. Accurate Screen Limited, where a senior business-development employee allegedly misrepresented his academic credentials, was fired for cause, found another job within months, and still sued for wrongful dismissal.  

They unpack why honesty is central to the employment relationship, how courts analyze just-cause terminations, why résumé fraud can destroy trust from the start, and why suing after being caught may be the boldest move of all. Along the way, they connect the case to broader employment-law principles, the difficulty of proving cause, the power imbalance courts recognize between employers and employees, and the growing challenge of fake credentials in an AI-driven world.

Listen For:

00:00 What happens when someone with a fake MBA sues for wrongful dismissal?

2:42 Why did this Alberta résumé-fraud case become so surprising?

7:16 Can lying about academic credentials justify termination for cause?

13:16 How do burdens of proof work in employment-law dismissal cases?

23:24 Does an employer have a duty to verify a candidate’s résumé?

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Contact Us

Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email  

Transcript

Gavin Tighe (00:00):
This is the definition of chutzpah. Having been caught with the fake MBA and the fake resumé and terminated for cause, I mean, he's a liar. He lied on his resumé. I found it really galling. He managed to get another job. I think he was unemployed for four months.

Stephen Thiele (00:21):
Four months, right.

Gavin Tighe (00:22):
He got another job and then he sued for wrongful dismissal for, I guess, the four months that he had spent unemployed. Hello and welcome to the next episode of Beneath the Law, Gavin Tighe here with my good buddy, Stephen Thiele. Stephen, how are you this week?

Stephen Thiele (00:54):
Oh, I'm exhausted, Gavin. Lots of work. I think you're exhausted too, but here we are.

Gavin Tighe (01:01):
I don't have time to be exhausted.

Stephen Thiele (01:06):
You just go on. You're like the Energizer Bunny.

Gavin Tighe (01:09):
Yeah. It's like one case rolls into the next case rolls into the next case.

Stephen Thiele (01:12):
Yeah.

Gavin Tighe (01:13):
And the life of a lawyer... Well,

Stephen Thiele (01:15):
What day is

Gavin Tighe (01:16):
it today? It's funny when you think about lawyers and stuff, you sell the only asset in the universe that you cannot replenish: time. And I'm always reminded of lawyers' docketing practices. I feel like J. Alfred Prufrock measuring out my life in coffee spoons of 0.2s and 0.3s of an hour on this file and that file, in our life of untold drudgery. Although I will say that there's a great satisfaction in being honest about it. I don't know if you feel that way.

Stephen Thiele (01:54):
You know what? I don't make enough money, so I guess I'm an honest lawyer and you know what? I'd prefer to be that way as best as I can.

Gavin Tighe (02:02):
Well, it does make you... You have to be really exhausted to be dishonest and sleep at night. So we're able to sleep a little better. And I don't really know. The case we're going to talk about today really is just one of those things like, what were you thinking? In the what were you thinking department, we have a case today about somebody who kind of embellished on their credentials, shall we say? Maybe you could tell our listeners the quick backstory on the facts of this juicy little tidbit from the province of Alberta.

Stephen Thiele (02:42):
Yeah. And really, Gavin, there are two things in terms of what were you thinking. One, the case in terms of misrepresenting academic credentials on the resumé. And two, why would you sue? Yeah. With respect to that, after you get terminated. Anyway, yes, this is a juicy case coming out of our favourite province in Canada, Alberta. Doug will appreciate that, that we're pulling all these wonderful Alberta cases. So we had a young man, a relatively young man in his 30s, apply for a job with a fabrication and grading company in Alberta. They were looking for a

Gavin Tighe (03:27):
We pause parenthetically. He was an expert at fabrication,

Stephen Thiele (03:31):
by the way. There you go. So he was applying for a job as vice president of business development in 2023. And here's another aspect. The employer engaged a third party recruitment person to run the interviews. And lo and behold, this young man applies for the job. They're looking for somebody who has a degree in business administration or a related field, preferably that they have an MBA degree. So this gentleman, who's the plaintiff in this case, doesn't have any of those credentials, does not have a business administration degree, but decides to put on their resumé, “Well, I'm applying and I'll be completing an MBA program at McGill University in November of 2023.” And that he's engaged in this ongoing program, basically represents to the recruiter that he's doing a mini MBA at McGill.

Gavin Tighe (04:43):
Very mini.

Stephen Thiele (04:44):
Yeah. Yeah. And that he's taken MBA courses, which he never took. Well, lo and behold, he gets the job. And for the first three months, he's kind of just sitting around. That's what the employer wants him to do. And then when he's tasked with some assignments where having an MBA degree would be really important, the quality of his work is questioned by the employer. The employer then wants to meet with him and they have a series of interviews and he's very evasive, apparently, about his academic qualifications and the employer decides to terminate him. And then

Gavin Tighe (05:30):
He sees... Did they find out that he did not have an... Did he admit eventually that he was, “Well, I was going to apply or I hadn't quite got my degree”? I think he fessed up at some point.

Stephen Thiele (05:46):
Eventually he fessed up. He certainly did that at trial.

Gavin Tighe (05:50):
Yeah.

Stephen Thiele (05:51):
Well, he could hardly avoid it. I don't know if he did it in the interviews. I just think they found his quality of work to be so poor that

Gavin Tighe (05:59):
Well, he

Stephen Thiele (05:59):
couldn't do

Gavin Tighe (05:59):
the job.

Stephen Thiele (06:01):
Well, he said he never got the degree, but he kept saying that he had taken some MBA courses, which he hadn't taken either.

Gavin Tighe (06:07):
Yeah. No, but I mean, I think what happened was, I mean, he could fudge his way through the tasks that were at hand, but they asked him then to prepare a report which required some sort of statistical analysis and application of the financial statements, which if you had an MBA would be, “Yeah, I know how to do that.” And if you don't, “I haven't got a clue.” And apparently his work product revealed that he did not have a clue. Yeah.

Stephen Thiele (06:39):
And I guess what I understand from the MBA program is you use a lot of Excel spreadsheets, and so part of, I guess, the curriculum for an MBA is understanding how to properly utilize an Excel spreadsheet in terms of numbers and probably the functions and everything else. And he didn't know, I guess, how to use that properly, which is why the employer began to be concerned. I mean, he was hired as a senior level employee.

Gavin Tighe (07:16):
Right. I mean, he didn't have the technical qualification that the degree that he claimed to have would clearly have endowed him with, and he couldn't do the job. So I pick up on your point though. I mean, this is the definition of chutzpah. Having been caught with the fake MBA and the fake resumé and terminated for cause, I mean, he's a liar. He lied on his resumé. I found it really galling. He managed to get another job. I think he was unemployed for four months.

Stephen Thiele (07:56):
Four months,

Gavin Tighe (07:57):
right. He got another job and then he sued for wrongful dismissal for, I guess, the four months that he had spent unemployed. Well,

Stephen Thiele (08:07):
I think he actually wanted more than the four months. He had only worked for seven or eight months for this company. The decision is very interesting in terms of employment law decisions. Even where a court finds that there was just cause to terminate the employee, they will give reasons in the alternative if they're wrong. And so the four months basically would've been found as the proper notice period because he got a job within four months.

Gavin Tighe (08:41):
Well, yeah. I mean, it's pretty hard to say that I should be paid severance when I'm getting another paycheque from somebody else. I mean, that's what notice is about. I mean, the whole theory of notice and severance is it's the buffer period that it takes you to get a new job and you have a duty, of course, to look for a new job, but it's the maximum amount. That's what notice in advance and/or severance payment after termination relate to, is how long will it take this person reasonably to find other employment?

Stephen Thiele (09:19):
Correct. And there's a standard test for that. There's a couple of cases now. Well, one goes way, way back. Bardal versus Globe and Mail, I believe was the defendant there. And it's got a four factor test and there's now an additional factor that is considered by the court in terms of determining the notice. But I got to tell you, Gavin, what I find quite remarkable in all of this is the extent to which this young man went to put on his resumé. Like it's a deliberate act, right? The court says it, it's by his own hand

Gavin Tighe (10:03):
that

Stephen Thiele (10:04):
he puts on the resumé that “I'm enrolled in McGill University and I'm expecting to complete an MBA.” He was never enrolled until after he did the interviews. He just kind of entered all, “I'm going to apply,” and then never really followed up with it. And then well,

Gavin Tighe (10:21):
why bother? He got the job. Why would you need to go to school?

Stephen Thiele (10:30):
One would think that at least you'd

Gavin Tighe (10:31):
make an effort. Character in one of these law... I hate to admit it, but I don't watch any of these law programs even though... So I guess having spent my life as a lawyer, I don't watch this, but there was one on Suits and I've heard about the guy who was like the real hotshot. He never went to law school. It was all a scam. He just pretended to have gone to law school.

Stephen Thiele (10:51):
Well, do you remember the movie Catch Me If You Can?

Gavin Tighe (10:54):
Oh, exactly.

Stephen Thiele (10:55):
Right? The guy who became the Pan Am pilot?

Gavin Tighe (10:58):
Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. That's pretty scary. I mean, it's one thing to say you're the director of business development, how much damage can you actually do? But imagine the pretend surgeon. That would cause me some angst.

Stephen Thiele (11:15):
Well, and there have been people who've faked that degree too, right?

Gavin Tighe (11:20):
Oh, for sure there has. Oh, a hundred percent. There's been a great many creative individuals. But I think you're right. What's particularly galling here is that this individual, having been caught, wasn't satisfied with just sort of slinking off into the sunset having learnt their lesson. They sued. And I mean, I think it really tells you something. I mean, and what's really striking to me is they took the case to trial. I mean, I can't remember, were they represented by a lawyer?

Stephen Thiele (12:02):
Let me just check here, Gavin. I can...

Gavin Tighe (12:06):
I should know that.

Stephen Thiele (12:07):
I've got the case here in front of me.

Gavin Tighe (12:09):
But if they were, that's really shocking that a lawyer would take that case to trial. I mean, self represented litigant, okay, fine. Why not? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. No,

Stephen Thiele (12:25):
there was a law firm acting for the plaintiff. Yeah.

Gavin Tighe (12:27):
That's just remarkable to me that it really... I mean, we see the number of plaintiff side employment lawsuits that go on and we see there's a great deal of advertising for plaintiff side lawyers on the employment side and on the personal injury side as well. And I think it's indicative of a fact that they know that most of these cases settle because quite frankly, to a large degree, employment law is very much skewed in favour of the employee. I mean, it is designed in a great many ways to protect the employment relationship and treat it quite differently than any other normal sort of contractual relationship that people enter into. 

Stephen Thiele (13:16):
Well, what I think, Gavin, and I didn't really appreciate this, I don't practise employment law in terms of the work that I do, and I don't tend to get into a lot of research elements with respect to employment law cases, because like you say, most of these settle, but I didn't appreciate that there are these shifting burdens of proof in employment law. So his burden was to show that he got dismissed without notice, which is what happened. And then the burden shifts onto the employer to basically show why there was just cause to terminate him. And then if they are able to show that, the burden shifts back onto the employee to say, “Well, it was disproportionate, there was condemnation, and that I didn't deserve to be terminated.” But I just don't understand this case. When four months later he got a new job, why would you... The damages would not have been that much.

Gavin Tighe (14:28):
No, I mean, I don't know what he was making, but assuming that it's four months, I guess it's 30,000,

Stephen Thiele (14:36):
40,000,

Gavin Tighe (14:37):
I think. I think the argument goes... Yeah. I mean, as I said though, I mean, I think employment law, the jurisprudence favours the employee and the courts protect people. I mean, our Supreme Court of Canada has talked about a job as really being a defining aspect of oneself. Where they say a person's employment is an essential component of his or her sense of identity, self worth and emotional wellbeing. So they treat it, your job, your career is very much who you are to a large extent in our society. And the courts are pretty... They recognize, I think, that there's a power imbalance between employees and employers, and they seek to right the balance by making the law very much in favour of the employee. And as you mentioned, proving cause is not an easy thing to do. I mean, you'll oftentimes... And I don't practise employment law on a day to day basis at all, but I mean, I will certainly tell clients who want to fire people, and they may have a very good reason to want to fire them.

Gavin Tighe (15:44):
I'll say, “Listen, it's a perfectly good reason to want to fire them, but if you're going to allege cause, be prepared.” I mean, that's a hard test to prove cause right out of the gate. Now, if you have escalating discipline issues, somebody's late and then they're repeatedly late and then they don't show up and they have warning letters on file and you've escalated the discipline, fine. Finally, you get to cause. But right out of the gate for something, it's got to be pretty bad. I mean, it's got to be in the level of dishonest, kind of fraudulent conduct. That really would be what would be required for immediate termination without sort of escalating discipline.

Stephen Thiele (16:31):
Well, I agree. I mean, and I think it's based on the level of the employment relationship, what level the employee is working at. The quote that you just read from the Supreme Court of Canada case, which goes way back and it's called Reference re Public Service Employee Relations Act, I've used that specific phrase. We used it to great success in a case where we represented a bank employee who was terminated for dishonesty. And I think it was a teller and it was much more of an innocent kind of dishonesty, not necessarily a kind of deliberate dishonesty. Well,

Gavin Tighe (17:22):
Innocent dishonesty is almost like an oxymoron, but anyways.

Stephen Thiele (17:27):
But we used it to great success. It went to the Court of Appeal where I think the judgment at trial was upheld in terms of finding that the employee was wrongfully dismissed.

Gavin Tighe (17:44):
Sure. Every allegation of dishonesty is not going to be made out. I mean, I do think that there has to be a deliberateness, there has to be an intentional aspect to the misconduct, or it has to be so egregious that it really has to shock the court to some extent that there's no coming back from that. I mean, and in this instance, I think the court, quite rightly in my view, said, “Look, the fact that this guy lied from the get go completely tainted the necessary element of trust and reliance that exists between an employee and employer.” I mean, I think you would come at it in a different fashion too. I mean, the entire employment relationship was obtained through misrepresentation. I mean, there's all sorts of cases in contract law where if someone is induced to buy something, for example, on the basis of a misrepresentation with respect to the product, it allows the person on the other side of the contract to void the contract in the sense that it was procured through misrepresentation.

Gavin Tighe (18:55):
I mean, to me, lying on your resumé is effectively misrepresenting what the employer is getting when they hire you.

Stephen Thiele (19:05):
Yeah. And particularly with respect to academic qualifications, I mean, people may puff their skill set on a resumé and in the interview process, some people are great in the interview process. And then when you hire them, you find out that, “What do you mean you haven't done that before?” And they've been able to convince the interviewer that they're the greatest thing since sliced bread and they turn out not to be. So that's one thing, but the academic credentials are pretty serious, right? The entire

Gavin Tighe (19:42):
employment... Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the reality of it is that if you could just lie about your academic credentials, then why would anybody bother getting them?

Stephen Thiele (19:54):
Right. And look, I mean, quite frankly, the entire employment relationship is based on honesty and trust, and particularly when you're hired at a higher level as an employee. I agree

Stephen Thiele (20:08):
with that. So I think that was significant in this case as well. Now, the other thing, which is not that it's odd, but the judgment also focuses on the dishonesty during the interviews when he got caught, right? That he was evasive and would it have made a difference if it was just the dishonesty on the resumé? And had he admitted at the first interview, would the judge have maybe ruled differently? There were alternatives, I suppose, the court could have ordered. Well, you've got to give him a chance now to take the courses and enrol in the program, which is what he wanted to do. I mean, that's how the interview kind of evolved, the interviews that he, “Oh, well, I'll enrol. Can you pay for me?”

Gavin Tighe (21:03):
Okay. Yeah. Okay, fine. But I want a scholarship if I'm going to do it.

Stephen Thiele (21:10):
Exactly, right. So again, pretty odd circumstances. I mean

Gavin Tighe (21:16):
No, I mean, this guy, I mean, you've got to give him credit. I mean, in one regard, he's got a neck like, as my mother would say, he's got a neck like a giraffe. He's like, “This guy can...” Not afraid to stick it out there. And that's a skill. I mean, I guess if you're the business development guy, you want somebody who's brash and a good salesperson and can certainly puff the story. I mean, this guy was, man, he is really something else, but I think he's... I mean, we're talking about him. I mean, this is just one podcast, but I know that there have been a lot of articles written about this case now, but the gentleman, Tutor v. Accurate Screen Limited is the name of the claim. I assume Mr. Tutor. He's going to be the notorious Mr. Tutor who made up his credentials.

Stephen Thiele (22:11):
Well, and look, again, I think that's the fascinating part of this case. You get a job four months later, which is also a pretty good paying job from what I understand. And then you put yourself out there in a court case that everybody knows about now.

Gavin Tighe (22:27):
Yeah. And I mean, I don't know, did his old employer know that he had lied? I mean, here's an interesting question because usually it's pretty hard to come back from a termination like that because one of the things you would usually get on a new job is either a reference letter or something, right? “Oh, I got terminated from my last...” I wonder what he told the next employer about the reason for his departure from the last employer and if it was truthful.

Stephen Thiele (23:00):
Well, exactly. And is the new employer now going to conduct an investigation? Have they conducted an investigation?

Gavin Tighe (23:09):
If he was untruthful in any way about the basis of his past termination

Stephen Thiele (23:14):
you've

Gavin Tighe (23:14):
got a court case. They've got a ready made employment case for themselves already baked with a trial judgment.

Stephen Thiele (23:24):
Right. And look, I think one of the other aspects that we should let our listeners know about is the employer has no duty to dig into your background on the resumé. They can accept it as it is because really to ask that kind of a question during the interview process would be viewed as being improper in terms of probing into your academic background. That's the representation that you've made

Gavin Tighe (23:56):
to the prospective

Stephen Thiele (23:57):
employer.

Gavin Tighe (23:58):
It makes sense because when you think about it, the court can't say out of one side of its mouth that it's a relationship built on trust and confidence, but you, employer, have to do your due diligence to make sure they're not lying to you. Well, that's not much of a relationship built on trust and confidence if I have to go digging behind the scenes to figure out if you're telling me the truth. So you can't have it both ways. It's either a relationship based on trust and confidence or it's a caveat emptor relationship. And obviously employers can't be responsible for that. Now, having said that, I think sometimes depending on the nature of the position, it would behoove an employer because I don't think an employer wants to end up in this. You don't want to end up four months down the road with somebody and end up being a disaster.

Gavin Tighe (24:46):
It's better to weed that person out before they get there. So I think it probably would be well advised on the part of an employer to do a little bit of digging. I don't know if you'd call up the university that goes, “Hey, is Joe Blow really a graduate of your program?” Maybe you should. Maybe there are services that will do that for you.

Stephen Thiele (25:08):
Well, that's a very good comment. Certainly employers I think now check with respect to social media posts and that kind of thing, and they want disclosure of social media. Certainly, if you apply for a government job, they ask you those questions, although people still misrepresent who they are, even in those circumstances, as we know.

Gavin Tighe (25:39):
Or fail to just... That pesky little part of the oath that says the truth and the whole truth. The whole truth is often the problem. They'll tell you some of the truth, but not all of it.

Stephen Thiele (25:50):
Well, and look, Gavin, it's problematic. We were just doing some internet searches. Politicians have done it. They've lied with respect to their credentials. There have been government employees who have done that. People, I guess, if you're desperate looking for a job, people will certainly embellish or misrepresent on their resumés. This is not anything new. There have been cases with respect to the misrepresentations on academic qualifications before. And I got to tell you, in our AI world and our technology world, people are faking all kinds of things

Gavin Tighe (26:36):
Oh yeah,

Stephen Thiele (26:36):
for sure... nowadays. And how are you going to really catch that if you don't ask the questions? Or if you don't do a background check, right?

Gavin Tighe (26:44):
Yeah. I can get myself an Ivy League diploma on AI. Fancy

Stephen Thiele (26:50):
paper.

Gavin Tighe (26:51):
in a millisecond, right? Right. It looks pretty legit. Unfortunately, I will come back to the same point though that I made at the beginning. I mean, okay, it was a stupid thing to do. You fudged your resumé, you kind of get down the road on it a bit. How do you sleep at night living this lie that I'm going to get found out, and I guess I don't care? But I mean, I don't know that... Personally, I would be a basket case in terms of just thinking that I would be found out at any given moment, that my secret will be revealed. I'd be the Catch Me If You Can guy. You've got to admire people that have that kind of... How can I put it? They just are that agnostic to that concern. I'd be stressed out of my mind.

Stephen Thiele (27:50):
Well, and maybe he was because during that interview process, he eventually disclosed that he did have mental health issues. Now, whether that was true or not, who knows?

Gavin Tighe (28:03):
Was that true? Yeah. And that's become... And look, and I don't mean this in any way, shape or form to be derogatory, but it is becoming lately just the excuse of everyone that “I've got mental health issues.” Is being a compulsive liar a mental health issue or a character flaw? I mean, at what point is it that nobody's responsible for anything because I've got mental health issues? And at what point is it just that, “No, you're just a bad person.”

Stephen Thiele (28:39):
I don't know. I'm not qualified to give an opinion on that.

Gavin Tighe (28:43):
But I really do think that at some point there's a fine line between, “No, you're just a bad person.” And maybe the reason why you're a bad person is because you've got mental health issues. But if you're dishonest, you're dishonest. Sorry. People have to be responsible for their own conduct at some point. It's not always somebody else's fault or some condition's fault. And I think that constantly, to me, it almost demeans people that really do have mental health issues and that are trying their best and are good people, but are trying their best to deal with them and live with them. It's not an excuse for every bad thing you do.

Stephen Thiele (29:24):
No, for sure. Well, look, Gavin, I just think this is one of the most remarkable cases that I've come across recently, and certainly people in the legal profession have been writing about it. It doesn't come up all the time in terms of misrepresentations with respect to academic qualifications, but this one is a doozy. And I'd almost be embarrassed as the recruiter and the employer in some respects that they hired this person when he didn't have the background that they were looking for. So well, there's lots of questions in this case that I think we could probably talk a little bit more about, but we've already talked lots about

Gavin Tighe (30:09):
this. Yeah, we've talked enough. So look, bottom line is in employment law, honesty is the best policy. And always remember, if no one is above the law, everyone is beneath it. Thanks again, Stephen. Thanks to Doug Downs. Thanks to all of our listeners. Please rate us on anywhere you get your podcasts. We really appreciate any comments, feedback that we get and any ideas for future episodes. Always pleased to look at any new cases or interesting legal issues that are troubling you or you're interested in hearing more about or interested in hearing our take on it. And again, until next time, see you soon.