The Ontario government announced that it is introducing new legislation to assist workers who are affected by the covid pandemic, called the Covid-19 worker income protection benefit. The new law will require employers to provide employees with up to $200…
Spurred by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Ontario courts have rapidly introduced new technologies to enable court hearings to proceed virtually. One important development is the introduction of the evidence-management software CaseLines. CaseLines allows parties to…
As the covid-19 pandemic continues to affect the job market, causing many to be laid off from their jobs or have their hours substantially reduced at work, many people are left wondering whether they have any rights in this situation.…
In order to address the continuing effects of covid, the province declared a state of emergency again on January 12, 2021, effectively issuing a stay-at-home order. The new measures are to be in effect from January 14, 2021 until at…
Long-term disability (“LTD”) benefits provide income supplement when one is not able to work for reasons related to injury or illness. Typically, one has access LTD benefits through a group health benefits plan with their employer. If you become totally…
In most wrongful dismissal cases, while the courts recognize that termination has a significant impact on an employee’s well-being, employers are permitted to terminate employees without attracting aggravated or punitive damages. However, employees may be entitled to these additional damages…
Juan joined Wray James LLP as an associate lawyer in 2020 after working at a large full-service firm in Toronto where he gained experience in corporate and commercial law. Prior to this, Juan worked as a lawyer and articling student…
As a result of the Covid pandemic, the government of Ontario modified the Employment Standards Act (“ESA”) to create a new form of leave, being the “infectious disease emergency leave”. The new regulations exempted employees who were temporarily laid off…
Can my employer make me sign a release upon termination? When employees are terminated without notice they are typically provided with a termination letter outlining what the employer is offering in terms of a monetary payout. It can be incredibly…
Trial courts continue to iron out the practicalities of the “culture shift” called for by the Supreme Court of Canada in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7 to apply summary resolution procedures that are shorter and less expensive than trials…
Last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled on the issue of a dismissed employee’s length of service for the purpose of calculating reasonable notice in a situation where that employee signed several successive employment contracts with her employer over…
An employment contract is frustrated when, through no fault of either party, it becomes impossible to fulfill the contract. For example, where a firefighter suffers an injury outside of the workplace, that renders him or her unable to ever again…
Employers in Ontario have numerous obligations when it comes to establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. These concurrent obligations flow from a variety of sources: Ontario’s Human Rights Code, Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), and the…
The Ontario Human Rights Code protects employees from discrimination in employment on the basis of disability and requires that employers accommodate employees to the point of undue hardship. Last year the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario had the opportunity to…
A series of experiments has demonstrated that “equity-seeking” litigants are less likely to settle their claims out of court and are less likely to defer to a rationally justified settlement position. These are litigants who feel that they have been…
A great deal of research in various academic fields has attempted to identify and understand the factors that might explain why certain civil cases settle, while others proceed to trial before a judge or a judge and jury. This research…
Union Trials as Arbitrations An argument that has been advanced by unions seeking the civil enforcement of their fines is that the trial procedure set out in various union constitutions is essentially an arbitration agreement. This argument proposes that when…
The Relationship Between Individual Members and Their Unions is Contractual In Ontario, unions have unsuccessfully advanced two different arguments to try to persuade the courts to enforce internal union fines. Both arguments are premised on an important Supreme Court of…
Virtually every union has a constitution which sets out certain rules and standards of behaviour applicable to all members of the union. For example, when the union is on a legal strike, the constitution will almost always prohibit a union…
The government of Ontario has decided to extend the new Employment Standards Act (“ESA”) Regulations, resulting from Covid-19, with regards to temporary layoffs, constructive dismissal, termination and severance. The regulations which were set to expire in January 2, 2021, have…