Job abandonment typically occurs when an employee is absent without communicating with their employer for an extended period, leading the employer to conclude that the employee has voluntarily resigned. However, circumstances like medical emergencies or family crises may justify the absence, so employers should avoid jumping to conclusions.Continue Reading Out of Office… Forever? How to Handle Job Abandonment
Are you an employer using fixed-term employment contracts and wondering how to avoid costly legal pitfalls?
Ontario’s recent Steele v. City of Barrie decision provides key insights on how to use FTECs effectively, minimizing risks like paying out full contracts or unintentionally creating indefinite-term employees. Here’s what you need to know. Continue Reading Navigating Fixed-Term Contract Risks: Essential Lessons for Ontario Employers
In the world of employment law, terminations tend to steal the spotlight. But what about when the employee is the one ending the employment relationship?
Here is an overview of the law of resignation, and what employers need to know when they receive an employee’s “two weeks’ notice”. Continue Reading Employee Resignations: The Basics
Mitigation issues can save an employer months of termination pay and/or gut your termination case, depending on whether you are the employer or employee in a dispute.
But what exactly is mitigation? This post sets out the basics.
In Canadian employment law, mitigation refers to the legal obligation of an employee who
During 2023, we saw the Ontario Court of Appeal uphold two decisions awarding notice periods beyond what was believed to be the “24-month cap” at 27 and 30 months respectively.
In another recent Ontario decision, the Court awarded 5.5 months of pay in lieu of notice to an employee with only 5 months of service prior to dismissal, which is significantly higher than the “one month per year” rule of thumb. These decisions create uncertainty for employers given the wide range of potential liability arising from wrongful dismissal claims. Fortunately, there are proactive measures employers can take to avoid this liability. Continue Reading Uncertainty on Both Ends of the Common Law Notice Spectrum
Employees suing former employers for wrongful dismissal damages are obligated to “mitigate” their damages, and a failure to do so may lessen the damages awarded by a Court. In Part 1 of this series, we provided a general overview of the employee’s duty to mitigate. In Part 2, we are delving into specific mitigation issues: whether an employee is required to seek out lower paying positions after an unsuccessful period of searching for a more comparable role; whether job titles of the positions applied for matter; and how employers meet the onus of showing an employee has not met their duty to mitigate. These questions were answered by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Lake v. La Presse, 2022 ONCA 742. Note that the decision discussed here overturned Lake v. La Presse (2018) Inc., 2021 ONSC 3506, which we covered in a previous blog post. Continue Reading Mitigation Part 2: No Requirement to Search for Less Comparable Positions Over Time
The duty to mitigate is one of the few employee obligations in a wrongful dismissal dispute, and it can reduce a defendant employer’s liability significantly.
What is the Duty to Mitigate?
The duty to mitigate requires an employee to take reasonable steps to secure comparable employment after they have been wrongfully dismissed. When an employer wrongfully dismisses an employee, unless there is enforceable contract language to the contrary, the employee is entitled to damages for pay in lieu of common law reasonable notice. Continue Reading Mitigation Part 1: What is the Duty to Mitigate in Claims of Wrongful Dismissal?
Employers often wonder what the consequences might be if they don’t do everything their lawyer tells them to or, if they don’t get a lawyer at all and just “wing it” when hiring, firing, or dealing with workplace issues like harassment complaints or requests for accommodation.
Of course, it depends. Not every employee is going to be litigious, but a fair number are. It’s generally pretty easy for employees to get legal consultations and a lawyer to take their “wrongful dismissals” on contingency. The barrier to entry can be quite low.
So, what can an employer expect? In today’s post, we will go through the various types of employer-worst-case-scenario employment law damages.
Continue Reading Employment Law Damages: The Risk of Not Firing Properly
Recent caselaw suggests that huge damage awards for employees claiming wrongful dismissal is on the decline. Upper courts continue to cut down lower court awards and eliminate “bad faith”-types of compensation.
Last month, in Soost v Merill Lynch, the Alberta Court of Appeal reduced the lower court award to dismissed stock broker, Kurt Soost, from $2.2-million to