Alberta company's meeting minutes contradict discipline record
An Alberta employer lost on every ground of its employment standards appeal after questionable documentation practices undermined its just cause termination defense.
This ended up costing the company over $3,400 in wages owed to a former employee.
In her Jan. 16, 2026 decision, Vice-Chair Karen Scott of the Alberta Employment Standards Appeal Board found that Hillbilly Haulin' Ltd.'s discipline records — which appeared altered and contained misspelled employee names — failed to prove misconduct by Jason Lee Osbak, who worked for the company from January to April 12, 2024.
The documentation disaster
The tribunal identified serious credibility problems with four employee discipline records the company submitted as evidence of poor performance. Osbak's common-law partner testified that the records “appeared to have words, including the employee's name, ‘whited out’ and replaced with information about the Respondent,” suggesting they were created after termination to justify the dismissal.
The documentation problems compounded. Osbak's name was spelled incorrectly in different ways on each discipline record, none were signed by the employee, and two separate records both claimed to be his “third warning” on the same termination date of April 12. Most damaging, one discipline record stated Osbak arrived late at 10:30 a.m. on March 30, 2024, but the company's own safety meeting minutes showed he attended a meeting from 8:00 to 10:30 a.m. that same day.
The supervisor who allegedly witnessed the misconduct, Larry Nykolyshyn, never testified, despite still working for the company. Vice-Chair Scott noted that from this absence, “the Appeal Body could easily infer that Nykolyshyn's testimony would not have assisted the Appellant.”
When wage reduction notice comes too late
The company announced on March 30, 2024 that shop workers' wages would drop from $30 to $20 per hour, then immediately paid Osbak the reduced rate for the pay period that had started March 21. The tribunal found this violated Section 13 of the Employment Standards Code, which requires notice “before the start of the employee's pay period in which the reduction is to take effect.”
The company's failure to provide proper advance notice meant Osbak was entitled to the $10 per hour difference for the entire March 21 to April 3 pay period. This miscalculation created a chain reaction affecting overtime calculations throughout his employment.
The tribunal also rejected the company's argument that Osbak qualified as a truck driver subject to different overtime thresholds. The Appeal Body found that “the Respondent was not employed as a truck driver (for the purposes of section 41 of the Regulations) during the relevant period,” particularly since the regulation exempts drivers whose duties occur “entirely within the same city.”
The handshake deal that wasn't
The company claimed Osbak agreed to $60 daily rent deductions for parking his RV trailer in the shop yard — an arrangement owner Max Yaremko described as a “handshake deal” never reduced to writing. The tribunal ruled this violated Section 12(2)(c) of the Code, which requires wage deductions to “be authorized by the employee in writing.”
Vice-Chair Scott added that even if such an agreement existed, “the Appeal Body cannot take this agreement into account as a counterclaim or set-off against amounts owing by the Appellant to the Respondent under the Code.”
The tribunal's final order required the company to pay $2,320 in overtime, $190.46 in general holiday pay, and $966.15 in termination pay, plus a 10 percent officer fee. The case serves as a stark reminder, as the decision notes, that when credibility is contested, testimony “must reasonably subject his story to an examination of its consistency with the probabilities that surround the currently existing conditions.”
