The Supreme Court of British Columbia has sided with Donald Liesch, a former regional sales manager for Standard Life Assurance Co., ruling that he does qualify for long-term disability benefits from the insurer. The ruling came despite the fact that Liesch has also been found to have attempted to defraud the firm.

Liesch had 26 years of service with Standard Life, and became regional sales manager of the Vancouver office 1986.

According to court documents, Liesch became depressed after having cardiac surgery in September 2000. He was diagnosed as suffering from a severe depressive illness, which left him unable to work. At the October 2003 trial, Leitch maintained that he is still unable to work.

Standard Life paid Liesch short term disability payments, but denied that he was entitled to any long term benefits on the grounds that he had not proved he was disabled, or if he was, that it was his own fault.

In December 2000, Standard Life terminated Liesch’s employment, and commenced an action against him and two other employees alleging that they took unauthorized commissions and conspired to defraud the firm.

In an earlier trial in October, a B.C. court found that Liesch and the other defendants “conspired to defraud Standard Life and breached their fiduciary duties and employment contracts by taking unauthorized commissions or “fee splitting” through another company.”

Standard Life argued that Liesch’s depression and disability resulted from him from committing or attempting to commit a criminal offence.

However, the B.C. Supreme Court found otherwise, ruling in Liesch’s favour. It said his, “severe depression and anxiety disorder has been caused by a number of stressors in his life, including Standard Life’s lawsuit against him, but it was in no way caused by his conduct, which formed the subject of the lawsuit.”

The court found Liesch to be credible. It also indicated that Liesch’s reported fears that there were strange vehicles around his house, and that he was being watched, were not signs of paranoia. They were real, because the firm conducted videotaped surveillance of him on at least 26 days from Dec. 7, 2001 to Sept. 4, 2003.