Toronto employment lawyer on York U employee insurance fraud

Interview Summary

Employees at York University face insurance fraud allegations after filing fake benefits claims. Who’s responsibility is it to follow up with insurance claims? Is there a particular procedure employers must follow? Can employees be terminated as a result of submitting a fraudulent claim?

Jon Pinkus, a Toronto employment lawyer and Partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke to CityNews’ Mark McAllister on the situation and the repercussions for employees.

Interview Notes

“They’re going to be undertaking an investigation, and that will notify the employer of some irregularities, some potential fraud. They’ll undertake an internal investigation and report to the employer,” Pinkus states. “And if it turns out that the employee or employees have been involved in this fraud, almost invariably those employees or employee is terminated.”

Pinkus goes on to explain it is more beneficial for the organization to wait until the investigation has concluded rather than act prematurely.

“The last thing you want to do is suspend an employee or worse, fire the employee and then actually [you find out], this was a mistake, so you really do have to wait until you get that conclusion. Once you get that conclusion, then you can act on it.”