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The notice stated this amounted to a loss of over $1 million each year.

Some of the 38 former employees filed a $9.7-million defamation and wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Northlands and Reid in 2016.

In January, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice James Neilson dismissed an application by the defendants for a partial summary dismissal of the defamation and constructive dismissal claims.

The defendants appealed, arguing among other things that none of the plaintiffs were individually identified in the notice or any other statements about the parking decision.

Neilson declined to dismiss the lawsuit on those grounds, citing a Supreme Court of Canada decision that noted “attacks on a group can affect the reputation of an individual member of the group.”

The appeal court agreed.

“We see no reviewable error in the chambers justice’s analysis on this point,” the June 7 decision reads. “Having considered both the size and nature of the group, he concluded that Northlands failed to establish that the defamation claim was without merit.”

According to the decision, Northlands hired KPMG to review its operations in April 2015, which recommended Northlands automate its parking system to reduce labour costs.

Northlands then ordered an internal audit and a followup independent audit of parking services by the Edmonton International Airport, which both identified “issues with a number of non-cash transactions that were undocumented under Northlands procedures for cashiers,” the decision states.

“Notably, as the chambers judge points out … neither the internal or EIA audit mention theft by cashiers,” it adds.

The Northlands board decided to terminate all cashiers without cause and outsource parking services on Sept. 16, 2015, but did not announce the decision until Oct. 5 of that year.

One of the employees argues procedure changes to her job brought in after the board decision amount to constructive dismissal.

No dates for trial have been set.

jwakefield@postmedia.com

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