Employers tread carefully – the manner of dismissing an employee can cost you close to a million dollars In December 2017, Justice Emery of the Ontario Superior Court awarded Gail Galea approximately $1.6 million in damages for her wrongful dismissal…
There has been ongoing debate regarding the legality of termination provisions in employment contracts that comply with the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA“) at the time of termination but may potentially violate the law in the future. In the recent case…
The Supreme Court of Canada Clarifies the Standard of Review for Standard Form Contracts in Ledcor Construction Ltd. v. Northbridge Indemnity Insurance Co., 2016 SCC 37 In a September 2016 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada held that Northbridge Indemnity…
Tribunals cannot use legislation to obtain documents protected by solicitor-client privilege unless it contains “clear, explicit and unequivocal” language. In Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. University of Calgary, 2016 SCC 53, the Supreme Court protected documents subject to solicitor-client…
A “statement of fact” defence can fail if the court finds malice in libellous comments In a 2016 decision, the ONCA overturned the trial judge’s decision in Awan v. Levant, 2016 ONCA 970. Khurrum Awan brought a defamation suit against…
In May of 2017, the Ontario government announced a proposal to eliminate the Ontario Municipal Board. Under the new proposal, disputes with municipal land planning decisions will instead be appealed to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT). The LPAT will…
Higher Standard of Proof in Police Discipline Hearings While the standard of proof in criminal law is to establish facts beyond a reasonable doubt, civil courts and administrative tribunals generally require that claims be proven on a balance of probabilities.…
The Ontario Court of Appeal held in its recent decision of 2260695 Ontario Inc. v. Invecom Associates Limited, 2017 ONCA 70, that Invecom had violated the terms of their agreement of purchase and sale and therefore had to forfeit its…
Supreme Court of Canada upholds common law rule that positive covenants do not run with the land. In the 2016 decision in Heritage Capital Corp. v. Equitable Trust, 2016 SCC 19, the Supreme Court of Canada (‘SCC’) held that Equitable…
In the landmark February 2015 decision, Nissen v. Durham Regional Police, 2015 ONSC 1268 (Nissen), the Ontario Superior Court established a private law duty of care in an informer privilege matter. In its decision, the court awarded $345,000 in general…
The Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA), in Goldhar v. Haaretz.com, 2016 ONCA 515,recently confirmed that a libel suit over an article written and published in Israel could be heard in Ontario if some of the readership resided in the province.…
In the recent decision Fulawka v. Bank of Nova Scotia, the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has certified a class action permitting Scotiabank employees to advance their unpaid overtime claims as a group, rather than on…
The Ontario government has begun the roll-out of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (“Retirement Pension Plan”), which is intended to provide a predictable source of retirement income for Ontarians. The costs associated with the Retirement Pension Plan may come as…
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently confirmed that the contractual requirement for employees to be “actively employed” to receive their regular bonus payments or other employment benefits is not sufficient to displace an employee’s right to common law damages for…
In August, Justice Belobaba handed down his decision in Johar v. Best Buy Canada Ltd., 2016 ONSC 5287. This judgment serves as a stark reminder to employers: if you assert just cause for terminating an employee when no cause exists,…
The Duty of Good Faith and Workplace Investigations: Joshi v. National Bank of Canada A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court has indicated that employers may breach their contractual duty of good faith if they fail to provide employees…
Last year, we blogged about the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision in Wilson v. Atomic Energy, 2015 FCA 17, specifically its determination that a dismissal without cause under the Canada Labour Code (“Code”) was not an unjust dismissal pursuant to…
In a recent article, Forbes reported that an American computer programmer, described by his employer as a “model employee,” had secretly outsourced his own job to a company in China. The computer programmer, referred to as “Bob” in the news…
A recent Federal Court of Appeal decision, Bernard v. Canada (Customs and Revenue Agency), 2015 FCA 263, serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of collecting all necessary evidence and putting it before an administrative decision-maker in the first…
Distinguishing at law between a dependent contractor and an independent contractor can be challenging at the best of times. This issue is important to businesses and organizations because, like employees, dependent contractors are owed reasonable notice upon termination, while independent…