Luciano Branco is a Portuguese-Canadian welder who was working with a Saskatchewan company overseas in Kyrgyzstan when he was severely and permanently injured on the job in 1999 after a steel plate fell on his foot. Mr. Branco had workers’…
On September 6, 2012, Kyle Maclean was asked to pay a $20 cover charge to get into his local bar, the barking frog in London, Ontario, while his female companions were asked to pay only $10 that evening. This struck…
n the recent case of Fernandes v. Penncorp, 2013 ONSC 1637, Justice Hambly of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found the defendant insurance company liable for over $500,000 in damages arising from a breach of contract and failure to…
In a decision released on September 4, 2013, the Ontario Court of Appeal granted the Crown’s appeal from the sentence imposed in R. v. Metroni against a corporate defendant charged with criminal negligence causing death. The Court of Appeal increased…
In the recent decision, Power Tax Corporation v. Millar et al., (2013), 113 O.R. (3d) 502, 2013 ONSC 135, the Honourable Mr. Justice Goldstein of the Ontario Superior Court considered the doctrine of abuse of process in a case where…
Potential Repercussions for Labour Relations In an important decision, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled that the source of funding for a party’s legal representation is presumptively subject to solicitor-client privilege. In the case, Kaiser (Re), 2012 ONCA…
In a decision released in June 2013, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declaring Mr. William Malamas to be a “vexatious litigant.” Mr. Malamas is a former real estate agent who…
In September 2013, Justice Grace of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded a plaintiff in a wrongful dismissal case $20,000 in damages for breach of the Ontario Human Rights Code. This appears to be the first-ever decision under s.…
In the June 2013 decision, CEP Local 30 v. Irving Pulp and Paper, the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada, in an opinion authored by Abella J., allowed the appeal from the New Brunswick Court of Appeal’s decision, but…
The recent case of Olivares v. Canac Kitchens, 2012 ONSC 284 provides a useful reminder of what to include in a damages calculation for a wrongful dismissal case. In this case, the plaintiff had worked for Canac Kitchens for 24…
Contracting Out of Limitation Periods: Boyce v. The Co-Operators General Insurance Company, 2013 ONCA 298 In May 2013, the Ontario Court of Appeal handed down a decision in Boyce v. The Co-Operators General Insurance Company, 2013 ONCA 298, which clarifies…
This blog considers the implications that a recent criminal law decision may have for employment law. While it is uncommon for criminal law and employment law to intersect, a recent evidentiary issue decided by the Court of Appeal for Ontario…
In the recent decision, Bowes v. Goss Power Products Ltd., 2012 ONCA 425 (CanLII), a five-member panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that there is no duty to mitigate if an employment agreement contains a fixed-term notice…
In a recent decision released in March 2013, former university professor Denis Rancourt, who is a defendant in a defamation claim by University of Ottawa law professor Joanne St. Lewis, was ordered by the court to disclose his Facebook “friends”…
We’ve all heard an embarrassing story where someone hit “send” before an email or text was finished, sent a sensitive email to the entire group when it was intended for only one recipient, or wrote something they instantly regretted. On…
In the recent case, Fair v. Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, 2013 HRTO 440, the Human Rights Tribunal reinstated the applicant, Ms. Fair, into a position with the respondent school board, more than eight years after she was dismissed. This case…
A recent decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Chisolm Place Housing Co-operative Inc. v. Hickox, 2013 ONSC 2215, has affirmed that housing co-operatives must be transparent, fair and reasonable when seeking to terminate the membership and occupancy rights…
A decision released by the Federal Court in January 2013 confirms that employers must accommodate their employees with parental obligations to the point of undue hardship: Johnstone v. A.G. (Canada). Fiona Johnstone and her husband worked as Border Services Officers…
A recent decision from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (“HRTO”), Tremblay v. 1168531 Ontario Inc., highlights the importance of confidentiality in the settlement process. Trish-Ann Tremblay filed a human rights application against her former employer, a fast food restaurant,…
The Human Rights Tribunal recently convened a rare three-member panel to consider the issue of whether the Human Rights Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide if the WSIB’s traumatic mental stress (“TMS”) policy and the related provisions of the Workplace Safety…