In the recent decision of Wilds v. 1959612 Ontario Inc., the Ontario Superior Court of Justice provided yet another reminder that saving provisions in an employment agreement will not save a termination provision which violates, or has the potential to violate, the requirements of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (the “ESA“).
As a refresher,…
An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just “Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.”
Mitch Hedberg
There are a substantial number of types of misconduct that a Court may award damages to address. An employer may be required to pay…
As an employment lawyer and a Swiftie, relationships are on my mind. Our work and romantic relationships are significant; their breakdown is naturally disruptive. In my previous blog, I discussed two situations where “dumped” employees may need to get back together with their employers. The first was the sale of a business. The second,…
In the recent decision of Barrette v. Bombardier Transportation Canada, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted a request by the employer to compel a former employee to undergo an independent medical examination (“IME”). This decision comes only a few months after an IME was ordered in the context of another wrongful dismissal case,…
It’s natural to want a clean break and a fresh start after the end of an employment relationship. In most cases, employees can find new opportunities without looking back. However, as the decision in Brown v. General Electric Canada et al., 2024 MBKB 95 (“Brown”) reminds us, sometimes employees have to essentially get back together…
This might be a cliche, but dismissals are like breakups: hard to pull off correctly; stressful; and rarely mutual. In this blog post, I want to focus on the last point. While dismissals are virtually never mutual, there are circumstances where both the employer and the employee mutually part ways amicably. That’s right, in these…
Although in many ways the height of the COVID-19 pandemic seems far in the past, employers and employees (and employment counsel) are still dealing with its impacts today as cases continue to make their way through the court process.
In the recent decision of Croke v VuPoint System Ltd, the Ontario Court of Appeal…
A company car is a great perk. If you’re lucky enough to get your own company car as part of your compensation package, then you might be able to relate to a dismissed employee who was so broken up about having to return his company car that he refused to do so until a court…
As employment lawyers, a regular topic of conversation with clients about implementing and using performance improvement plans (“PIP”) to address an employee’s lagging performance. Our typical guidance is that a PIP can be an excellent tool to identify and rectify an employee’s performance issues. When used properly, a PIP can assist an employee to…
In wrongful dismissal lawsuits, the former employee’s medical condition can sometimes become an issue for the Court to consider. To what extent can the employer test this medical condition through a Court-ordered independent medical examination of the employee?
Examples of When a Medical Condition Could Be a Potential Issue
Claims for Moral Damages and/or Aggravated…
