Appeal Court sides with student expelled from U of A college

A college at the University of Alberta has lost a long-running legal battle with a student expelled for giving unconventional advice about antidepressants.

Beatrijs Penn won her case before the Alberta Court of Appeal last month, with the court finding St. Stephen's College treated her unfairly when it kicked her out of its master's of psychotherapy and spirituality program.

At issue was a client session recorded as part of Penn's practicum in 2015. One of Penn's supervisors watched the video and was concerned about Penn's use of “graphic self disclosure with a client to dissuade the use of antidepressants.”

A three-member Court of Appeal panel sided with Penn, however, because she was not given adequate opportunity to view the video clip in question.

“The college owed Ms. Penn a high degree of procedural fairness, which included the ability to review the video clip and indeed the entire video session from which the clip was taken,” the court wrote in its March 26 decision.

“The video clip was stated by the college to be the primary reason for the termination of Ms. Penn's practicum and her ultimate expulsion. It was the catalyst for all the events. Ms. Penn was entitled to review this key piece of evidence.”

Penn worked for more than 30 years as a registered psychotherapist in her native Netherlands. She immigrated to Canada in 2013 after attending a seminar with Edmonton spiritual leader John de Ruiter, who was charged last year with multiple counts of sexual assault for allegedly inducing women to have sex with him. Penn said she left the group a few years after coming to Canada.

St. Stephen's College expelled Penn in 2015 after officials reviewed the video of her session with a client at the school's community counselling centre. During a 20-minute clip of the session, Penn suggested antidepressants caused brain damage and dementia and that taking them was a “way to avoid problems,” the court decision states. While stressing she could not tell the client not to take medication, Penn said she herself does not take pharmaceuticals. She compared herself to her own sister, who was “in a coffin under the ground.”

Penn also suggested mental health medication “disturbs the function of the cells” and told the client about treatment she had advised for another patient.

The video clip came to light months after the college found against Penn in a separate disciplinary case, ordering her to write a letter of apology to a colleague for questioning her ethics and competence.

Penn appealed her expulsion. The case wound its way through three internal appeals and two judicial reviews. The appeal to Alberta's top court came after Court of King's Bench Justice Doreen Sulyma dismissed Penn's judicial review application.

Penn ultimately prevailed due to the college's handling of the video. Officials with the school claimed Penn had previously been given an opportunity to view the video, later arguing it could not be released for patient privacy reasons. At one point, college officials led Penn to believe the video had been destroyed.

The Court of Appeal faulted the college for failing to find a workaround that would have addressed privacy issues and allowed Penn to see the video.

“The failure of the college to permit Ms. Penn to review a video, which was said to be the main reason for the expulsion was a breach of procedural fairness which was never remedied in the nine-year course of this litigation.”

Penn also won an application to submit an affidavit from the client, who said she was skeptical of antidepressants but never felt Penn put pressure on her either way.

“I was very much against taking a pharmaceutical as I believed in my heart that my depression was situational,” the patient said.

The Court of Appeal declined to order a new hearing because Penn no longer wishes to return to the college. It said it would “encourage” St. Stephen's to apologize to Penn but could not order it to do so.

A hearing on what the college owes Penn in legal costs will take place at a later date.