New Brunswick has dropped its appeal of the $2-million payout awarded to the fired CEO of the Horizon Health Network.
Health Minister Bruce Fitch said a “mutually satisfactory resolution” has been reached between the province and Dr. John Dornan.
“As such, the Province of New Brunswick has withdrawn its appeal, which was scheduled to be heard on April 19,” Fitch said in a statement released Monday.
Dornan was fired by Premier Blaine Higgs in July 2022 — just four months into his five-year contract — following the death of a man waiting for care in the emergency room of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton.
It was part of a larger shakeup which also saw the health minister shuffled out and the boards of the province’s two health authorities replaced.
Dornan was awarded just over $2 million by a provincial labour adjudicator, which his lawyers said was the largest employment compensation ever awarded in the province.
That award was recently upheld by a Court of King’s Bench judge, but the province applied to the Court of Appeal to have it reversed.
No details were released about the resolution that was reached between the two parties.
