Ex-hospital staffer files $4.5M claim
The former director of engineering and operations at The Ottawa Hospital says he has been unfairly vilified and unable to find other work as a result of allegations against him in a lawsuit launched by the hospital.
As a result of the publicity surrounding the “baseless allegations,” Brock Marshall’s life “has been destroyed and his prior sterling reputation has been demolished,” according to his counterclaim that seeks $4.5 million in damages.
Marshall’s statement of defence and counterclaim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, is in response to a lawsuit filed by the hospital in 2016, alleging a massive fraud and kickback scheme largely orchestrated by Frank Medwenitsch, the former head of the hospital’s facilities and planning department, along with several key contractors. Marshall was also named in the lawsuit, which has not been proven in court.
The hospital lawsuit alleges Medwenitsch and Marshall approved both inflated invoices and invoices for work that was either not done or incomplete. The lawsuit also alleges that Marshall and his family received home renovations from hospital contractors below cost or at no cost.
Marshall denies the claims, and says he conducted due diligence and consulted with others to determine whether payment was appropriate, despite pressure from others.
Clearly designed ... to deflect attention away from the serious allegations and evidence of the fraudulent scheme.
“On many occasions, Brock denied payment to these contractors who were named as defendants in this claim, despite the urging of others in the hospital,” according to Marshall’s statement of defence and counterclaim. “On many occasions, despite the urging of his superiors, Brock made sure that the bidding process was fair and transparent. Despite the fact that the senior executives in the hospital only paid lip service to the gift policy, Brock complied with the gift policy.”
His statement of defence alleges there were attempts made to try to “coerce” him to approve dubious invoices, but he never agreed to approve them and, in fact, created a team to review some of the invoices.
In addition to denying the allegations against him, Marshall alleges in his statement of defence that senior managers “including, but not limited to, Cameron Love, regularly failed to respect directives and/or guidelines established by Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in matters of procurement.”
Marshall’s court document alleges that when construction projects were approved through ministry guidelines, Love “at times directed hospital staff to allocate the cost of other projects on the ministry-funded project in question, without the ministry’s knowledge or consent.”
The hospital, in a counterclaim, called the allegations about Love baseless “and clearly designed ... to deflect attention away from the serious allegations and evidence of the fraudulent scheme perpetrated by Marshall against the hospital.”
The hospital said it “defies logic” that the hospital condoned or approved of his conduct.
The hospital also restated that Marshall “participated in the fraudulent scheme ... including improperly limiting competition among the vendors.”
“The hospital states that Marshall received gifts and kickbacks from the vendors in exchange for improper procurement advantages, which were not disclosed to the hospital and that violated the hospital’s gifts policies.”
None of the allegations has been proven in court.