The Chartwell Chronicles: Employment Law
Managing the Size and Structure of Your Post-Pandemic Workforce
#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA ETS on Hold, Retaliation Claims Increase, "Vaccination Ambassadors" - Employment Law This Week®
In Croke v. VuPoint System Ltd., 2024 ONCA 354, the Court of Appeal for Ontario (OCA) upheld the Superior Court of Justice – Ontario (SCJ)’s summary judgment decision that an employee’s refusal to comply with their employer’s...more
The Court of Appeal for Ontario (OCA) recently held that an employee may be awarded aggravated damages for an employer’s bad-faith conduct during the employee’s dismissal even in the absence of medical evidence identifying a...more
In Egan v. Harbour Air Seaplanes LLP, 2024 BCCA 222, the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) upheld a lower court’s decision that a termination clause in an employment agreement was enforceable because it was neither...more
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently held that an employee’s failure to meet COVID-19 vaccination requirements imposed by a third party amounted to frustration of the employment contract. As a result, there was no obligation...more
In Aldergrove Duty Free Shop Ltd. v. MacCallum, 2024 BCCA 28, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia (BCCA) dismissed an employer’s appeal when it agreed with the lower court that the employer could not use the frustration...more
In Gannon v. Kinsdale Carriers, 2024 ONSC 1060, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice denied common law reasonable notice to an employee who was wrongfully dismissed from her employment on the basis that she failed to...more
In Shalagin v. Mercer Celgar Limited Partnership, 2023 BCCA 373, the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) upheld the lower court’s dismissal of an employee’s wrongful dismissal claim and its finding that his surreptitious...more
In Shalagin v. Mercer Celgar Limited Partnership, 2023 BCCA 373 (“Shalagin”), the British Columbia Court of Appeal affirmed that surreptitiously recording fellow employees may constitute just cause....more
In Breen v Foremost Industries Ltd, 2023 ABKB 552, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta dismissed the claim of a President and CEO that he had been wrongfully dismissed from his employment, finding that his employment had...more
In Dove v Destiny Media Technologies Inc., 2023 BCSC 1032 , the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that an employer had just cause for the dismissal of a full-time employee who worked on a side business during working...more
In Khangura v Lumberwest Building Supplies Inc., 2023 BCSC 1053, the Supreme Court of British Columbia dismissed an employee’s claim that he was entitled to damages because he had been wrongfully dismissed without cause. The...more
An arbitrator recently issued the first award in Ontario to address and uphold the reasonableness of a hospital vaccination policy that provides for the termination of employment for non-compliance. In Lakeridge Health and...more
In Teljeur v Aurora Hotel Group, 2023 ONSC 1324, a wrongful dismissal case, the court awarded the plaintiff-employee seven months’ damages for reasonable notice, and $15,000 in moral damages due to the employer’s bad-faith...more
In Pham v. Qualified Metal Fabricators Ltd., 2023 ONCA 255, the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) found that unless an employee’s employment contract provides otherwise via an express or implied term, an employer’s unilateral lay...more
In December 2022, the Alberta legislature passed a bill allowing for an increase to the limit on civil claims in the Alberta Court of Justice (formerly, the Provincial Court of Alberta and sometimes referred to as "small...more
In the recent Steele v. The Corporation of the City of Barrie, 2022 ONSC 7245 decision (“Steele”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice provided some insight into when longer term fixed-term contracts can be enforceable....more
The Alberta Court of Appeal determined that Canada Emergency Response Benefit (“CERB”) payments are not deductible from wrongful dismissal damages, following an emerging trend from other jurisdictions....more
The Alberta Court of Appeal (ABCA) recently addressed an increasingly common question—whether financial support provided under the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program to workers directly affected by COVID-19...more
First Canadian Appellate Court determines that Canada Emergency Response Benefits (“CERB”) payments are not deductible from wrongful dismissal damages. In Yates v Langley Motor Sport Centre Ltd., the British Columbia...more
In Yates v. Langley Motor Sport Centre Ltd., 2022 BCCA 398, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia (BCCA) decided that Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments should not be deducted from damage awards for wrongful...more
In McCharles v Jaco Line Contractors Ltd., 2022 AHRC 115, an employee alleged that her employer discriminated against her on the basis of gender contrary to the Alberta Human Rights Act (AHRA) when it terminated her...more
In Lake v. La Presse, 2022 ONCA 742, the only issue on appeal was whether the lower court erred in reducing the employee’s wrongful dismissal damages for failure to mitigate. The Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) set aside the...more
The recent decision of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, Wisser v CEM International Management Consultants Ltd., 2022 ABQB 414, determined that the oppression remedy under the Alberta Business Corporations Act (“ABCA”),...more
In a wrongful dismissal action against four corporate defendants that were part of a family business, the plaintiff claimed the defendants were common employers, that he was their employee prior to his dismissal, and was...more
In Ferguson v. Yorkwest Plumbing Supply Inc., 2022 ONSC 4792, an employee who commenced a wrongful dismissal action via Ontario’s Simplified Procedure rules was granted an order striking the employer’s statement of defence...more