Labour & Employment

You may think that the WSIB pays benefits to a worker for traumatic mental stress only in situations where the worker was involved in a situation perceived as or actually life-threatening. And you would have been right until recently, when the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Appeals Tri…

As an employment lawyer, I am often approached by clients on the issue of “independent contractors versus employees”. Corporate clients look to use independent contractors, rather than employees, to perform work more cheaply and with more flexibility – without costs such as CPP, EI, EHT, WSI…

We’re all familiar with the classic scenario when the response to a termination by an employer prompts the response, “You can’t fire me. I quit!”. But after the dust settles from the initial blow-up, what happens next? A recent case from the British Columbia Court of Appeal is instructive. I…

I’ve often said that my job is mostly about people behaving badly at work, so the fact situations underlying the cases I read are often all too human in nature. Consider the case of Winnie, who was fighting with her common-law husband about money. She wasn’t convinced he was actually paying …

It’s a Happy New Year indeed for labour/employment lawyers and their clients, who now have clear direction from the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal on the thorny issue of when duplicative litigation will be permitted (or not!) before the Tribunal. Previously, the Tribunal had issued conflictin…

Several months ago, I blogged briefly about the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (“AODA”), which became law in 2005.  As part of that law, every private-sector and not-for-profit organization that provides goods or services to the public or to third parties and that has at l…

Sometimes we management-side labour/employment lawyers get a little discouraged by case law which can, on occasion, seem to favour employees. But once in a while there’s good news and it is particularly good when it comes from the Supreme Court of Canada. Last week, the SCC strongly reaffirm…

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (“AODA”) became law in 2005.  As part of that law, every private-sector and not-for-profit organization that provides goods or services to the public or to third parties and that has at least one employee in Ontario must be in compliance …

As summer wanes, I’m wringing every last ray of sunshine out of the ever-shortening days. One of the ways I’m doing this is by sometimes extending weekends into Friday afternoons or Monday mornings, relying on my trusty BlackBerry to keep on top of work while still enjoying the beach or the …

One of the messages that we deliver to clients all the time is the importance of using written employment agreements for all employees. A recent case from the Ontario Court of Appeal stands for the proposition that the unskilled nature of employment is no longer much of a factor in determini…