Trending Topics

In Cho v. Cafe La Foret Ltd. (a BC decision), the employer cafe wound up paying its terminated head baker pay in lieu of notice, costs, and aggravated as well as punitive damages even though the Court found that this employee had been terminated after the employer had correctly concluded that he had sexually harassed a subordinate female employee...

Lay-offs under the Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”) provisions enacted by the Ontario government were rendered permissible.  Employees laid off in this manner remained entitled to sue under the common-law for constructive dismissal.  Most didn’t expecting the lay-off to be short lived.  Some were never...

 “Asset sale” should be on every long service employee’s “don’t want to hear” list. This is because by simply organizing a sale of the business in a certain manner, employers can seek to shed liability for long service employees on termination of their employment in the sale process.  The main mechanism for this...

What happens when you can’t be vaccinated for bona fide medical reason? Often, nothing good.Vaccines are the best tool we have for managing both the transmission and severity of outcomes associated with COVID-19. What happens though if you are medically unable to be vaccinated? While these employees are entitled to statutory protection, in...

In Rahman v. Cannon Design Architecture Ltd., the court upheld a termination provision by distinguishing appellate court authority which would otherwise have bound the Court to void the provision for denying ESA minimum payments entitling Ms. Rahman to common-law notice.  With respect to the Court, this was unnecessary.  The Court was...

Many employees in Toronto receive commissions and bonus.  In the recent case of Kraft v. Firepower Financial Corp., the Court awarded an exceptional commission for a sale crystallizing post-termination during the notice period but used an average of bonus pool compensation in the two years pre-termination to determine pay in lieu of notice.  If the...

If the employer has no work for such employee(s) why would they expect to be able to demonstrate on a balance of probabilities that their competitors do?  Remember, an employee need only seek comparable employment during the period of reasonable notice claimed within a relatively tight geographic scope.  This employer strategy, absent compelling...

The provincial government has extended Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”) (now until September 25, 2021). This pushes the deemed termination of employees under the ESA back to year-end 2021 at the earliest. Merry Christmas…Ontario Courts recently released competing decisions regarding employee rights to commence claims of constructive...

I’ve written before about why employers have kicked the can of workplace restructure down the road using Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”) hint: because they could without incurring termination cost.When IDEL expires (currently in July but will the government extend the leave period?) what happens?  Well, the answer is remarkably complex...

An Alberta Court has awarded 9 months notice to an engineer with 6 years of service at the time his compensation was unilaterally reduced by 20%. There are many workplaces in Ontario which have imposed similar unilateral pay reductions or imposed significantly increased duties upon employees without additional compensation.  Navigating...