When External Complaints Collide with Workplace Investigations

It does happen from time to time: a complaint that an employee's external complaint has itself breached policy; essentially a complaint about a complaint. This typically arises when the employee's complaint breaches confidentiality or is perceived as reprisal for some unwelcome action of a manager or co-worker.

This occurs, for example, when an employee experiences an unwelcome workplace incident and then calls the police, the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Labour or a colleague's professional regulator. Such complaints might be the sincere actions of a conscientious individual, or they may function as a form of workplace harassment or reprisal pursued through another channel.

HR and operational leaders often let sleeping dogs lie, and the external inquiry (criminal, regulatory or otherwise) runs its course. Sometimes, the external complaint becomes the subject of its own investigation.

Case Study: the GEDSB Judicial Reviews

Take for example the recent judicial reviews of the Grand Erie District School Board's investigations into the conduct of Trustee Carol Ann Sloat. Ms. Sloat is a longtime trustee, and was accused in her present term of office of several breaches of the trustee code of conduct, all, as the court put it, originating with:

"…a benign complaint to the [Ontario] Ombudsman over whether a Board meeting to discuss new governance bylaws and policies was required to be open to the public and cascaded into a morass of further complaints and sanctions against the applicant, all for relatively minor infractions if, indeed, they were infractions."

In June 2022, Ms. Sloat complained to the Ontario Ombudsman that the Board had breached the Education Act by discussing certain matters of policy in-camera, away from public scrutiny, that she believed were required by law to be debated in open session. The Board in turn alleged that Ms. Sloat had breached the code of conduct by disclosing confidential Board information in her Ombudsman complaint and imposed sanctions including suspension from Board meetings and committees.

In two judicial reviews, November 2024 and August, 2025, the Ontario Superior Court sided with Ms. Sloat.

In the November 2024 decision, the court found that:

“In essence this complaint and resulting Decision amount to a reprisal against the applicant for being a whistleblower.”

In 2025, the Board sanctioned Ms. Sloat again, this time for including confidential in-camera information in a judicial review application (through her lawyer), which the Board alleged had again breached her confidentiality obligations. The August 2025 judicial review Decision found that:

(a) it was within the Board's own power to remedy this disclosure by applying for a sealing order, and,

(b) "…that the Board’s real concern was not about the confidentiality of the documents that were disclosed but about punishing the applicant."

Implications for Employers

While trustees are not employees, the same issues turn up in employee-centred cases. An employee who feels unfairly disciplined or coached may escalate matters by filing an external complaint. The GEDSB judicial reviews remind employers to exercise restraint when an employee discloses such information to:

• Ombuds

• Police

• Self-regulating professional Colleges such as the HRPA or College of Nurses

• MOL or public sector regulatory enforcement agencies

Threshold analysis

Before launching a management-initiated investigation into an employee's complaint, consider whether there is adequate evidence of misconduct to justify putting allegations to the employee in the first place. While 'airing dirty laundry' externally may be jarring and frustrating to organizations, adjudicators are likely to presume good faith in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary. 

Investigators should apply the reasonability standard against such external complaints:

• Confidentiality and whistleblowing: It's hard to make a whistleblower report without sharing confidential information. Organizational Codes of Conduct will typically invoke concepts of good citizenship, honesty and integrity, and encourage good faith complaints within the same pages of the conduct document that sets the expectation to preserve confidential information. Consider your organization's Code of Conduct 'good citizenship' expectations and whether they negate the confidentiality breach via whistleblower-style complaints.

• Fundamental merit: Did the external complaint have fundamental merit, even if mistaken? A mistaken but reasonable complaint is not the same as a vexatious one. On a balance of probabilities, investigators must establish that the complainant knew or ought to have known their complaint was meritless.

• Motivation and timing: Was the complaint made in reprisal for other workplace issues? If the timing aligns closely with unrelated workplace disputes, a reprisal motive may be inferred.

• State of mind: Even if a whistleblower complaint is motivated by a dislike of a co-worker or employer, if the complaint has merit, that's sufficient. Whistleblower complaints do not need to be made in a state of grace by the reporting employee.

When Complaints Cross into Bad Faith

In a narrow set of circumstances, an external complaint may be vexatious. For example, contacting police over a typical verbal workplace dispute solely to subject a co-worker to police questioning might amount to harassment or abuse of process. While contacting police is a protected right, using that mechanism in a knowingly false or retaliatory way is not.

The investigator needs to establish a compelling case that the external complaint was without merit, logically linked to hostile motive, and served to intimidate or reprise against a co-worker or the organization broadly. The evidentiary bar for such a finding is high.

Takeaways:

1. Exercise restraint before treating external complaints as misconduct. Courts may view such sanctions as reprisal.

2. Remain vigilant for rare but serious cases where external complaints are made in bad faith, and apply a structured reasonability standard before reaching that conclusion.

   
   

3. Consider the external complaint as a potential symptom of unaddressed conflict elsewhere. If the complaint was in good faith, it bears examination why internal reporting and responsibility systems were passed over.

   
   

   If your organization is weighing an external complaint as a form of misconduct, it may be the right time to contact an external investigator to neutrally evaluate the case, and to consider whether a workplace assessment can help diagnose root causes of conflict.