Labour & Employment

“Privity of contract” is a common law tradition. The rights and obligations imposed by contracts are private – strangers to the contract generally have no entitlement to enforce such rights or obligations. But what happens when the employee of the seller of a business sues the buyer for wron…

So you have a problem employee that you want to terminate. Your employment lawyer reminds you that you would owe nothing to the employee in a “for cause” termination, but that it’s unlikely that you could prove cause in the circumstances. She then goes on to assess your common law reasonable…

Aside from some “tweaks”, not much has changed when it comes to the Ontario’s overtime rules[1] in many years. Why then do I see so much employer non-compliance? Are employers unaware of their overtime rights and responsibilities? Or do they simply choose not to comply and hope no one compla…

I have previously discussed the enforceability of termination clauses in former blog posts, available here and here. In short, a long history of inconsistent and amorphous case law has created significant uncertainty among lawyers attempting to advise their clients about whether a given term…

Many employers have often had the experience of receiving a vague doctor’s note from an employee that reads something along the lines of, “this individual is unable to work for X weeks”. Employers are left wondering: Why? Can I be sure this is legitimate? Is the employee likely to return aft…

Consider the following scenario. A business gives advance written notice of termination to one of its employees. At the same time, the business delivers to the employee a letter offering a termination package (i.e., a settlement agreement) that exceeds the employee’s minimum entitlements und…

The case of Joseph v. Tecumseh Community Development Corporation (2019 HRTO 635) is a good reminder that the process of accommodating human rights in the workplace is a cooperative one, requiring effort and information by both parties.   In this case, Ms. Joseph forwarded a human rights comp…

Are you one of the growing numbers of Canadian employers who are reluctant to provide employment references for former employees? Concerned you are going to be sued by a former employee for defamation if your reference is not positive enough? Concerned that you are going to be sued for misre…

More often than not, the employer asserts frustration of the employment contract when an employee is absent on a lengthy medical leave and there is little prospect of a return to work in the foreseeable future. Employers often want to get these employees “off the books”, even though it means…

In a previous blog, I discussed recent cases discussing the enforceability of termination clauses in employment agreements. In Ariss v. NORR Limited Architects & Engineers, 2019 ONCA 449, a Court of Appeal decision released on May 30, 2019, the Court confirmed that employees and employe…