Navigating the Litigation Process
While a lawyer can provide guidance through the steps of the negotiation and litigation process, knowing how the process works prior to initiating it should help alleviate some of the stress. Here is a brief outline of steps in the litigation process in the order in which they [generally!] occur.
Duty to Provide an Employer with Reasonable Notice of Termination
Just as an employer has a duty to provide proper notice of termination to an employee they terminate without cause, an employee also owes a reciprocal duty to provide notice of their resignation. Damages for not providing such notice are not often sought because, practically speaking, what the employer can hope to recover is often outweighed by the legal costs necessary to obtain it. However, when such damages are sought, this often comes as quite a shock to the employee who believed there would be no repercussions for quitting without notice.
Mitigation – It Doesn’t Happen In A Vacuum
Mitigating your losses after being dismissed, such as making concerted efforts to find new employment, is important if you feel that the dismissal was unjust. However, a recent case has demonstrated that contextual factors do come into play when a court is evaluating the extent to which an employee has attempted to mitigate.
Changing Workplaces Review: Update The Definition of “Employee”?
On July 27, 2016, the Ministry of Labour released the much-anticipated Changing Workplaces Review: Special Advisor’s Interim Report. This report is part of the Ministry of Labour’s broader mandate to modernize employment and labour laws, in an effort to strengthen protection for vulnerable workers and enhance business competition in a globalized and changing economy. While the report makes no specific recommendations or proposals, it sets out various options for reform.
Fiduciary Employees Held to a Higher Standard
The definition of a ‘fiduciary employee’ is not black and white. However, breaching a fiduciary obligation can be costly and, sometimes, even be career suicide. It is important to know when you may be in the grey ‘fiduciary’ area.
Restrictive Covenants: What Are My Rights Post-Employment?
When employees leave their employment, they may take with them a tremendous amount of information about the business of their former employer. With some exceptions, those employees could go on to compete with their former employer, as long as they don’t use that employer’s confidential information. For this reason, employers often include clauses in employment contracts to address this exact scenario, commonly referred to as restrictive covenants.
Fixed-term Contracts: 10 Things You Should Know
Due to our current economic climate, an increasing amount of employees are being hired on for fixed-term contracts. A fixed-term contract is one that either ends on a specified date or lasts until a specific task is complete. This type of employment relationship raises unique concerns and issues as compared to a full-time or indeterminate employee.
Earned Bonuses: Payable upon Termination?
With its recent decision of Paquette v. TeraGo Networks Inc., the Ontario Court of Appeal offered some much-needed clarification regarding the payment of bonuses during the reasonable notice period. Before this decision, the case law appeared mixed on this issue in cases where the language of the bonus plan required that an employee be ‘actively employed’ in order to receive payment of a bonus.
Filing A Ministry of Labour Complaint
A recent study conducted for the Ministry of Labour found that employees in Ontario have lost out on $28 million in unpaid wages over the last six years. And these lost wages are just the ones where the Ministry of Labour failed to collect money that was owing to employees. Combine this failure to collect with the fact that less than 0.2 per cent of employers who are guilty of monetary violations are ever prosecuted, and it becomes clear that there is a lot of money owing to Ontario employees that never makes it into their pockets. Below are four tips for filing a complaint with the Ministry of Labour.
The Strudwick Decision – When Employers Get What They Deserve
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently awarded $246,049.92 against employer of the year candidate, Applied Consumer and Clinical Evaluations Inc. In Strudwick v Applied Consumer and Clinical Evaluations Inc., the court found that the employer calculatedly tried to make a deaf employee’s workplace so intolerable that she would just quit. When she refused to quit, the employer terminated her, alleging cause.