Wrongful Dismissal Ontario FAQ A wrongful dismissal in Ontario is when an employee is terminated without enough “severance”*. What is severance? Employers have to provide advance warning to employees that their employment is going to be terminated otherwise it is a wrongful dismissal. However, employers can just pay employees money in lieu of advance warning of …
Wrongful Dismissal
Ontario severance pay can mean one of three things: (1) “statutory Ontario severance pay”, (2) “common law Ontario severance pay” and (3) “severance pay according to your employment contract”. How much severance pay in Ontario am I entitled to? The amount of Ontario severance you are entitled to depends on which kind of severance applies …
Is Drinking at Work Just Cause for Termination? Employees can be terminated at any time for any reason so long as the employer provides notice. However, in certain situations employers can terminate employees without notice if they have “just cause” to terminate the employee. Thus, the question becomes, does drinking at work constitute “just cause”? …
Employers sometimes ask me – what is the maximum amount of notice we need to give long-standing employees upon termination? How Much Notice for Long-Term Employees Upon Termination? I used to tell them 24 months was the maximum notice an employee was entitled to upon termination. However, since the beginning of 2016, I now have …
Two recent Small Claims Court cases demonstrate the courts’ willingness to sanction employers for improper just cause allegations. These cases highlight the fact that employers need to be cautious in asserting just cause. If employers make a just cause allegation that they shouldn’t have, they could be on the hook for $10,000 in extra punitive …
March 25 Update: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian government has proposed legislation to establish a new kind of income replacement benefit called the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). The CERB will temporarily replace all new applications for Employment Insurance once it is in place. We don’t yet know if the CERB will require an …
Employers generally owe their employees common law reasonable notice upon termination without cause. However, if the parties agree to a probationary period in an employment contract, the right to common law reasonable notice can be ousted if the employee is terminated within the probationary period. A recent Ontario Court of Appeal case, Nagribianko v. Select …
Introduction The Ontario Court of Appeal, in Brake v. PJ-M2R Restaurant Inc., 2017 ONCA 402 (CanLII), recently clarified the law of mitigation. The duty to mitigate is an employment law principle that requires employees who are terminated without reasonable notice (i.e. a wrongful dismissal) to look for a new job. If a new job is …
The laying of a criminal charge alone does not constitute just cause (i.e. dismissal without notice) in every instance. In order to summarily dismiss an employee for being charged with a criminal offense, the employer must show that there is some connection between the charge and the employer. In this regard, the employer must show …
Construction employees are not entitled to termination or severance pay under the Employment Standards Act (the “Act”). Section 1 of Ontario Regulation 288/01 of the Act explicitly exempts them from such minimum employment standards. However, a long term construction employee may still be entitled to common law reasonable notice, which is much more lucrative than what …