Lawsuit against City of Guelph resolved through mediation

A wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the City of Guelph by a former chief building inspector has been resolved through mediation.

Bruce Poole had been seeking $1 million after he felt he was wrongfully fired in 2015. It is not known how much the settlement was.

Contacted Saturday morning by phone, Poole said that “we resolved it through mediation this week and that’s all I can say.”

City of Guelph Chief Administrative Officer Derrick Thomson confirmed Saturday that a resolution had been reached.

He would not disclose any other details.

Confidentiality clauses are standard practices in court settlements. Poole would not say if one was or was not part of the resolution in this case.

Poole filed his lawsuit against the city roughly a year ago.

The settlement comes 12 days after GuelphToday revealed that the city had inadvertently handed Poole’s lawyers 53,000 items from the work email of a former top city executive, including many marked “private” and “confidential.”

The email items ranged from internal staff evaluations, internal criticism of staff and Mayor Cam Guthrie and emails about the personal lives of city executives.

The City acknowledged the mistake and was taking efforts to retrieve the information inadvertently handed over.

Shortly after the leaked emails, the city fired Deputy CAO Mark Amorosi.