A former Burns Lake teacher has won his second appeal of a B.C. College of Teachers decision to find him guilty of conduct unbecoming a teacher.
In a ruling issued Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court Justice found the College "did not apply the appropriate standard of proof to the facts before it" when reconsidering a previous decision for Michael William Fountain.
At issue was an August 2001 incident in which Fountain fired a warning shot over his two sons after they beat him outside his home, a farm outside Burns Lake where he was living with his second wife and their blended family of five children.
Earlier that same month, Fountain had agreed to let his eldest son, who was 20 and living away from home, to move back onto the property and live in a cabin away from the main farmhouse.
However, there was a history of tension between the son and Fountain's new wife. Fountain returned home one day to find his son and wife in a shouting match that also involved a 17-year-old son from Fountain's first marriage.
Fountain ordered the oldest one to leave the house and both sons went outside, carrying a pot of macaroni that one had been cooking. Fountain followed them and ordered them off his property but they said they wouldn't leave until they finished eating.
Fountain grabbed the pot and threw it a distance away. The sons responded by attacking Fountain with one putting him in a headlock and punching him in the head while the other repeatedly punched his back and ribs, according to fact presented in the ruling.
The wife was able to pull off one son but not the other and she went back to the house to retrieve a rifle and a bullet. The sons relented and left the area.
When they were about 150 metres away from the farm gate, Fountain fired a shot into the air and later testified he did so to send a message, "likening it to scaring off rogue bears."
Fountain was eventually convicted in provincial court for careless use of a firearm but a year later, he successfully appealed the provincial court conviction, which was overturned.
In June 2005, the college found that nonetheless Fountain's conduct was unbecoming a teacher, finding he had escalated the confrontation by refusing to let them finish eating and by firing the shot, even though the beating was over and they were leaving.
A "reasonable teacher would not have communicated with a gun shot," the college concluded.
Fountain won his first appeal of the decision in June 2007, when a judge found the college failed to show his actions impaired his ability to teach in a classroom and the college was ordered to reconsider.
In issuing her ruling this week, Justice Miriam Maisonville found the reasons for the college's most recent ruling, reached in December 2009, differed little from the first one and ordered a verdict of not guilty be substituted and a reprimand removed from his record.
In a 2007 interview with the Vancouver Sun, Fountain said he no longer wants to teach but wants to be compensated. Maisonville gave counsel 30 days to reach an agreement on compensation or arrange a court date to speak to costs.
