A Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench judge will decide if Credit Union Centre — now known as SaskTel Centre — had just cause when it fired two senior employees in January 2012 over a trip to Arizona.

Lawyers presented closing arguments in the wrongful dismissal trial Friday morning.

The lawyer for plaintiffs Brian Swidrovich and Will Antonishyn said the two were wrongfully dismissed and that the trip was work-related and approved by executive director at the time Ken Wood.

Swidrovich was the director of business development at the time while Antonishyn worked as the finance and ticketing director. Larry Seiferling, their lawyer, argued the reason for the trip was to strengthen a business relationship with SIGA and pointed to previous trips with SIGA in the two years prior that didn’t pose an issue. Court heard the CUC employees were also going to learn about the stadium in Arizona.

“This whole case from beginning to end is a bit of a tragedy for those two individuals and we do have serious questions about how it was handled from the beginning,” Seiferling said during his closing statement.

The person who was in charge of an investigation launched by the company admitted to not knowing how to run the investigation because he’d never done one before, according to Seiferling.

He argued Swidrovich and Antonyshin were long-time employees and worked for CUC for 18 and 24 years, respectively. He said they were respected employees who worked a lot of overtime and argued it was a concocted case in order for the board chair to “clean house” when a new executive director was to step in.

“There’s nothing to show cause,” Seiferling said.

The lawyer representing CUC argued the trip was set up as a retirement function for Wood and that it was clear the company wouldn’t pay for it. He argued the employees and the SIGA representative already had a relationship and said there was no value in strengthening it in Arizona.

“There was no legitimate business reason for this trip,” Robert Gibbings said.

He argued if Swidrovich and Antonishyn were at a football game to research the stadium they wouldn’t have been drinking alcohol. Gibbings argued it was clear that CUC would not be footing the bill. He also said everything that needed to be learned took place during the two trips in 2009 and 2010.

Justice Richard Elson said Swidrovich and Antonishyn didn’t try to conceal what they spent on the trip and said even if the trip was a “bad idea” it was authorized by their immediate supervisor.

The plaintiffs are seeking lawyer fees and punitive and moral damages. He said the case has impacted their reputations. The value, if any, will be decided by Justice Richard Elson.

Dates for a decision in the trial have not yet been set as Elson said the courts are down the equivalent of 1.5 full-time judges since new appointments haven’t been made.

“It is a problem,” he said, promising to have a decision as quickly as possible.