Court found engineer showed 'careless disregard' for confidentiality despite decades of service
In a decision dated May 12, 2026, Justice N.F. Dilts of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta upheld the for-cause termination of Kelly Benham, a Senior Technical Advisor with more than 40 years of service at Suncor Energy and its predecessor companies. Benham was fired on March 18, 2021, five months before his planned retirement, after repeatedly involving his son Nick, an engineering graduate, in the development of a Suncor patent, failing to flag a conflict of interest, and continuing to promote his son's separate patent filing inside the company despite repeated warnings. The court found the termination lawful, and ruled Benham's stock options and restricted share units were validly cancelled.
Without seeking approval from his supervisor, Benham brought his son into work on Suncor's "Integrated Thermal Process" (ITP) patent in 2018. Nick spent hundreds of hours on the project, was eventually named an inventor, and signed an NDA and assignment agreement.
In November 2018, Benham received a formal reprimand for breaching Suncor's Standards of Business Conduct, including storing business records in his home office and disclosing patent contents to his son.
He was warned that "any further violations of Suncor policy might result in additional disciplinary action, up to and including termination."
Unknown to Suncor, Nick filed...
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