Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Competing summary judgment applications required the court to decide whether there was any genuine issue for trial under Saskatchewan’s summary judgment rules.
• Central legal question concerned whether union officials’ access to and internal use of a reprimand letter breached the statutory tort of privacy under The Privacy Act.
• Interpretation of “wilfully and without claim of right” and “reasonable expectation of privacy” was pivotal in assessing each alleged privacy violation.
• Evidence focused on affidavits from the plaintiff and union officers describing how the reprimand letter was obtained, stored, shared, and referred to in union activities.
• The effect of the collective agreement clause mandating that reprimand letters be copied to the union shaped the court’s finding that the union had a lawful claim of right to use the document.
• Alleged reputational and personal harms (including employment and marital breakdown) were found either unproven, too remote, or non-compensable in the absence of an established breach of privacy.

Background and facts

The case arises from a workplace dispute at Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Regina Campus involving instructor and program head John Karmazyn and officers of his union, the Saskatchewan Polytechnic Faculty Association. At all material times, Mr. Karmazyn was a member of the Faculty Association, a certified trade union. The defendants—Warren White (President), Erin Knuttila (Vice President), and Peter Burke and Tracy Gall (Faculty Relations Officers)—held various officer roles within the Association. Some, like Mr. White and Ms. Knuttila, were also employees of Saskatchewan Polytechnic, while Mr. Burke and Mr. Gall were employed directly by the Faculty Association.
The conflict began when, in April 2019, another Saskatchewan Polytechnic employee filed a harassment complaint naming Mr. Karmazyn. The employer conducted an independent investigation, during which the Faculty Association, through its Faculty Relations Officers, represented and advised Mr. Karmazyn. In June 2019, Saskatchewan Polytechnic issued a reprimand letter to him in relation to the harassment complaint and, pursuant to the collective agreement, sent a copy to the Faculty Association.
Later that year, in September 2019, Mr. Karmazyn improperly obtained an unredacted copy of the complaint, which contained personal information about the complainant. Around the same time, he asked that Mr. Gall be removed as his Faculty Relations Officer, and Mr. Burke took over that role. To facilitate that transition, Mr. Gall provided Mr. Burke with a copy of the reprimand letter, taken from the Association’s locked file. This internal sharing of the reprimand letter formed the first alleged breach of privacy.
In October 2019, as part of internal union politics, Mr. Karmazyn ran for election as Vice President of the Faculty Association, opposing the incumbent, Ms. Knuttila. The Association subsequently received complaints from members questioning his candidacy, particularly in light of the harassment complaint and discipline, and Mr. Burke provided the reprimand letter to Mr. White so the President could evaluate those candidacy complaints. This additional internal sharing of the letter became the second alleged breach of privacy.
Later that month, at a “Meet the Candidates” event hosted by the Faculty Association for the Vice Presidential race, both candidates spoke and answered questions. Some members of the audience were already aware that a harassment complaint had been made against Mr. Karmazyn. During the event, a member asked the candidates whether they had a disciplinary record. Ms. Knuttila answered that she did not have any disciplinary letters on her file. Although nothing was said explicitly about Mr. Karmazyn’s record, he felt embarrassed and believed that this exchange implied he had discipline on his file and that his privacy had been compromised. This incident formed the third alleged breach of privacy.
In parallel, Mr. Karmazyn filed several grievances complaining of the representation and advice he had received from Faculty Association officers, as well as the Association’s decisions not to pursue those grievances. The Faculty Association declined to advance his grievances, and its Executive Council dismissed his internal appeals. In August 2020, he escalated the dispute to the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board by alleging a breach of the union’s duty of fair representation. The Board ultimately issued a decision in 2021, but that labour board ruling is only part of the broader procedural background to the present civil action.

The civil action and pleadings

In May 2020, Mr. Karmazyn commenced an action in the King’s Bench for Saskatchewan against the four union officers, alleging that they had violated his privacy under The Privacy Act, RSS 1978, c P-24. He advanced the statutory tort of invasion of privacy as his primary cause of action and sought general, special, punitive, and aggravated damages, as well as solicitor-client costs.
The pleading grounded the alleged privacy violations in three sets of conduct:

1. The provision of a copy of the reprimand letter by Mr. Gall to Mr. Burke when Mr. Burke assumed the role of Faculty Relations Officer.
2. The later provision of the same reprimand letter by Mr. Burke to Mr. White in order for the President to address complaints about Mr. Karmazyn’s candidacy for union office.
3. The answer given by Ms. Knuttila at the “Meet the Candidates” event that she had no disciplinary letters on her file, which he claimed effectively disclosed or highlighted his own disciplinary status.
   The defendants denied any breach of privacy, asserted that their actions were within the scope of their lawful roles as union officers, and argued that any handling of the reprimand letter was authorized by the collective agreement and fell within what The Privacy Act contemplates as legitimately justified conduct.

Collective agreement terms and the union’s claim of right

A central contractual framework informing the court’s analysis was the collective agreement between Saskatchewan Polytechnic (as employer) and the Faculty Association (as the certified union). Article 23.2.1 of that agreement governed the recording of reprimands. It provided that reprimands were to be recorded “by means of a letter to the employee with a copy to the Association.”
This clause was important in two respects. First, it confirmed that the employer was required to send a copy of any reprimand letter both to the affected employee and to the Faculty Association. Second, it made clear that the copy held by the Association was not the employee’s property; it was a document the union received for its own records and legitimate purposes. The court emphasized that subsequent provisions limiting the employer’s use of reprimand letters applied to the employer’s personnel file, not to the union’s file. As a result, the Faculty Association’s possession and internal use of the reprimand letter derived from a contractual “claim of right” under the collective agreement.
These terms, and the way they had been interpreted and applied in past practice between the employer and the union, shaped the court’s approach to whether the defendants could be said to have acted “without claim of right” for the purposes of The Privacy Act.

The statutory tort of privacy and governing legal principles

The action was framed squarely under The Privacy Act. Section 2 of that statute creates a tort, actionable without proof of damage, where a person wilfully and without claim of right violates another person’s privacy. Section 3 provides non-exhaustive examples of privacy violations, including the use of “letters, diaries or other personal documents” of a person without consent. Section 4 sets out various defences, such as consent, lawful authority, or actions taken in particular public or investigative capacities, and section 6 directs courts to consider what degree of privacy is reasonable in the circumstances, having regard to the lawful interests of others and the nature and impact of the impugned conduct.
Saskatchewan courts have developed the contours of this statutory tort through a line of cases, including Peters-Brown v Regina District Health Board, Bigstone v St. Pierre, Ratt v Tournier, Ahmed v Canadian Light Source Inc., Kumar v Korpan, and Bierman v Haidash. These decisions stress several core points: the need to show a reasonable expectation of privacy; that not every handling of personal information constitutes a breach; that “wilfully” requires more than mere inadvertence; and that a defendant’s lawful interest or claim of right can negate liability even where personal information is deliberately shared.
Drawing on this jurisprudence, the court in this case distilled five constituent elements that must be established for a successful claim under The Privacy Act:

1. The plaintiff must have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the subject matter alleged to be violated.
2. There must be an act, conduct, or publication by the defendant that infringes that privacy interest.
3. The defendant’s conduct must be wilful in the sense of intending the act that constitutes the violation, not merely accidental or inadvertent.
4. The defendant must act without a claim of right—that is, without legitimate authority or justification for the conduct.
5. The conduct must occur without the consent of the plaintiff or another person lawfully entitled to consent.

Suitability for summary judgment

Both the plaintiff and the defendants brought applications for summary judgment. Under Rule 7-5 of The King’s Bench Rules, the court may grant summary judgment when there is no genuine issue requiring a trial, having regard to the affidavits filed and the court’s ability to weigh evidence, evaluate credibility, and draw reasonable inferences. The court also relied on the Supreme Court of Canada’s guidance in Hryniak v Mauldin, which encourages the use of summary judgment where it permits a fair and just determination that is proportionate, efficient, and less costly than a full trial.
Here, the parties had filed extensive affidavit evidence, including affidavits from the plaintiff and from each defendant, as well as documentary exhibits such as the reprimand letter, extracts of the collective agreement, correspondence, and the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board decision. Procedure for summary applications required full filing of materials and briefs before the hearing. The parties agreed, and the judge concurred, that the matter was suitable for determination by summary judgment because the relevant facts could be fairly established from the paper record without the need for viva voce testimony.

Application of the law to the alleged breaches of privacy

The heart of the decision lies in the court’s application of The Privacy Act to the three alleged privacy violations centered on the reprimand letter.
First, the court recognized that the use of a reprimand letter could fit within section 3(d) of The Privacy Act, which refers to the use of “letters … or other personal documents of a person” without consent as prima facie evidence of a violation. However, the plaintiff’s theory rested heavily on the assumption that the Faculty Association and its officers needed his consent to review or share within the union the copy of the reprimand letter stored in the Association’s file. The judge rejected this premise.
By virtue of article 23.2.1 of the collective agreement, Saskatchewan Polytechnic was required to send the reprimand letter to both the employee and the Association. The employer authored the letter, and the union’s copy was provided for its own record-keeping and purposes as the bargaining agent. In these circumstances, the Association’s possession and internal handling of the letter constituted a lawful “claim of right.” It followed that the officers’ internal exchanges of the letter—Mr. Gall providing it to Mr. Burke when representation responsibilities shifted, and Mr. Burke providing it to Mr. White in order to respond to member complaints about a union election—were uses consistent with the union’s legitimate functions. There was no external disclosure of the letter outside the Association, no broader publication, and no evidence of an intent to violate privacy. As a result, the first and second alleged breaches could not amount to actionable invasions of privacy.
Regarding the third alleged breach, the court scrutinized the “Meet the Candidates” event. The question from a union member about whether either candidate had a disciplinary record, and Ms. Knuttila’s answer that she had no disciplinary letters on her file, did not in itself expose or disclose any information about Mr. Karmazyn’s record. Her answer was strictly limited to her own situation and was truthful. Although the plaintiff perceived the exchange as implicitly pointing to his own discipline, the court found no basis to treat her answer as a violation of his privacy.
Moreover, the evidence suggested that the existence of a harassment complaint against him was already common knowledge within the workplace, unsurprising given ordinary workplace gossip. By standing for elective union office, Mr. Karmazyn voluntarily put himself in a position where his suitability, including his record, would be scrutinized and debated by the membership. Later, by pursuing relief before the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board, he also kept the underlying dispute publicly alive.
Taking all three episodes together, the court concluded that the plaintiff had not shown that his privacy had been violated by any wilful and unjustified act on the part of the defendants. The union’s institutional and contractual role, the collective agreement’s express requirement that reprimand letters be copied to the Association, and the limited internal use of the letter all undercut the claim that the defendants acted without claim of right.

Damages and remoteness

Because section 2 of The Privacy Act makes the tort actionable without proof of damage, the court did not need to find quantifiable loss for liability to arise. Nonetheless, the plaintiff advanced an extensive damages claim, including general, special, punitive, and aggravated damages, and attempted to link the alleged privacy breaches to the eventual end of his employment and marriage.
Even had a breach of privacy been established, the court held that such far-reaching alleged harms would be too remote to attract compensation. There was insufficient evidence to show causation between the handling of the reprimand letter and those major personal outcomes, and as a matter of legal principle the connection was too attenuated. The judge indicated that, in the hypothetical scenario where liability were found, only nominal damages would have been appropriate. Since no breach was found, no damages of any kind were awarded.

Outcome and costs

Having determined that the parties’ affidavits and documentary record allowed for a fair and just determination of the issues, the court granted summary judgment in favour of the defendants. It dismissed the plaintiff’s action in its entirety, holding that none of the three alleged privacy breaches satisfied the statutory requirements of The Privacy Act. The Faculty Association officers had acted within a legitimate claim of right conferred by the collective agreement, there was no actionable publication of private information, and the plaintiff’s perception of implied disclosure at the “Meet the Candidates” event was not supported by the evidence.
On costs, the court applied Rule 11-1 of The King’s Bench Rules and ordered a single award of costs in favour of the defendants, calculated on Column 2 of the tariff. The reasons do not, however, specify a dollar amount; the actual quantum would be determined by reference to the applicable tariff scale and any subsequent formal judgment. In summary, the successful parties were the defendants, who obtained dismissal of all claims, with no damages awarded to the plaintiff and an order for their costs on Column 2, the precise monetary total of which cannot be determined from the decision text alone.