Employment and Labour Law

The 74-year-old plaintiff brought a wrongful dismissal action after 31 years of service with the defendant construction company.

The defendant claimed the plaintiff had voluntarily retired in 2010 and was only working on an as-needed basis.

The court found no evidence of retirement and concluded the plaintiff was terminated without cause in October 2012.

Applying the Bardal factors, the court awarded 20 months' pay in lieu of notice, finding the plaintiff was not required to mitigate by accepting a demeaning demotion to a flagman position.

Following a summary judgment for wrongful dismissal, the parties sought costs.

The plaintiff claimed $33,839.99, while the defendant argued its offer to settle triggered Rule 49.10.

The court found the judgment was as favourable as the defendant's final offer to settle, entitling the plaintiff to partial indemnity costs up to the offer date and the defendant to partial indemnity costs thereafter.

As the respective costs amounts were roughly equal, the court ordered the parties to bear their own costs.

The plaintiff brought a motion to set aside a Registrar's Order dismissing his wrongful dismissal action for delay.

The action was administratively dismissed after plaintiff's counsel failed to pass the trial record in accordance with a court-ordered timetable.

The court applied the Reid factors and found that the plaintiff failed to provide a reasonable explanation for the extensive litigation delay, failed to demonstrate inadvertence, and did not move promptly to set aside the dismissal.

The motion was dismissed, upholding the administrative dismissal.

The plaintiff, a 14-year employee, was terminated for failing to provide a doctor's note in a timely manner while on sick leave.

She brought a motion for summary judgment for wrongful dismissal.

The court found that while the plaintiff breached a reasonable company policy, summary dismissal was a disproportionate response.

The court determined the appropriate notice period was 10 months, but reduced it to 6 months because the plaintiff failed to mitigate her damages by not seeking alternative employment for 15 months.

The court dismissed the claim for punitive and moral damages, finding the employer did not act maliciously.

The plaintiff was awarded $20,904.

The defendants moved to strike the plaintiff's statement of claim, which alleged a failure to provide a timely letter of reference, for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

The plaintiff brought a cross-motion to amend the statement of claim to allege that the corporate defendant breached its policy to provide a reference.

The court allowed the amendment and dismissed the motion to strike, finding that the amended pleading sufficiently alleged a breach of the employment contract and related torts.

The plaintiff brought a motion to certify a class proceeding against the defendant employer for unpaid overtime.

The proposed class included non-management employees subject to the defendant's overtime policy.

The court found that the pleadings disclosed valid causes of action in breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and negligence.

The court certified the action, finding that there was an identifiable class, common issues regarding systemic practices and aggregate damages, that a class proceeding was the preferable procedure, and that the plaintiff was an appropriate representative.

The plaintiff brought a wrongful dismissal action against his former employer and its owners, alleging age discrimination.

The personal defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the age discrimination claims against them.

The plaintiff brought a cross-motion for summary judgment on the entire claim.

The court granted the personal defendants' motion, finding no employment relationship and no factual foundation for the age discrimination claim.

On the plaintiff's motion, the court found no cause for termination and that the plaintiff had mitigated his damages, leaving only the quantum of notice to be determined at a later date.

The representative plaintiff in a class action regarding pension benefits for employees transferred to Community Care Access Centres moved for settlement approval, fee approval, and an amendment to the class definition.

The plaintiff alleged the government breached a 'no loss' commitment regarding pension benefits.

The court approved the amendment to the class definition to include certain union members.

The court also approved the settlement of $752,500, providing $2,500 per class member, finding it fair and reasonable given the significant litigation risks, including a limitation period defence.

Class counsel fees up to $75,000 were also approved.

The plaintiff brought a motion to find the defendant, a former employee, in contempt of an interlocutory injunction prohibiting him from soliciting clients or disclosing confidential information.

The plaintiff relied on affidavits containing hearsay evidence regarding the defendant's alleged solicitation attempts.

The court dismissed the motion, holding that under Rule 60.11(3) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, hearsay evidence is inadmissible on a contentious point in a contempt motion.

The plaintiff failed to meet the strict burden of proving contempt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant employee moved for partial summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff employer's claim seeking to enforce a Confidentiality, Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation Agreement.

The employee argued the agreement was unenforceable due to lack of consideration and duress, and that the non-competition clause was overly broad.

The court granted the motion, finding that the employer provided no fresh consideration when it required the employee to sign the agreement years after his employment began.

The court also found the non-competition clause to be an unreasonable restraint of trade due to its broad temporal and spatial features.

The moving party, a former employee, brought a motion for summary judgment on his counterclaim for defamation against his former employer.

The former employer had sued him for breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of proprietary information, and the employee counterclaimed based on emails sent by the employer to his new workplace.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the truth or falsity of the allegedly defamatory statements was intimately bound up with the main claim, requiring a full trial to resolve credibility issues.

Following a successful summary judgment motion for wrongful dismissal, the plaintiff sought full or substantial indemnity costs, alleging the defendant engaged in improper conduct by initially offering insufficient severance.

The court found no improper, vexatious, or unnecessary conduct by the defendant that would warrant elevated costs.

The court awarded the plaintiff costs on a partial indemnity basis, fixed at $14,000 inclusive of disbursements and HST, noting the straightforward nature of the proceeding.

The plaintiff brought a motion regarding discovery issues in a constructive dismissal action.

The primary remaining issue was whether the plaintiff and the third party, whose interests were aligned against the defendant, should be permitted to review each other's examination for discovery transcripts before being examined themselves.

The court found a real possibility of collusion and tailoring of evidence given their close relationship and aligned pleadings.

The court ordered that the plaintiff and third party be excluded from knowing each other's discovery evidence until both examinations were completed.

The plaintiff brought a motion for leave to amend his Statement of Claim in a workplace harassment and discrimination action.

The defendants opposed the amendments, arguing they were statute-barred and lacked particularity.

The Master denied the amendment to add a claim for intentional infliction of mental distress, finding it was discovered more than two years prior and was therefore statute-barred.

Other minor amendments were permitted, while decisions on certain paragraphs were deferred to a pending motion to strike.

The defendant employee, accused of defrauding the plaintiff employer of over $470,000, brought a motion for further and better documentary production.

The defendant counterclaimed for unpaid loans and wrongful dismissal, alleging she was directed to make cash payments to creditors and others.

The Master granted the motion, ordering broad production of cheques, invoices, bank statements, and financial records, finding that the employer's unorthodox accounting practices and the serious nature of the fraud allegations necessitated extensive documentary discovery to allow forensic reconstruction of the financial history.

The plaintiff, a 58-year-old top-performing sales manager with eight years of service, brought a wrongful dismissal action against his former employer.

The court found the plaintiff was an employee, not an independent contractor, from the start of his engagement.

The court awarded a 12-month reasonable notice period, calculating damages based on base salary and an upward trend in commissions.

The court dismissed the claim for aggravated damages due to insufficient evidence of mental distress, but awarded $50,000 in punitive damages because the employer alleged just cause in bad faith as a negotiation tactic and significantly delayed paying statutory entitlements.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for approval of a proposed settlement in a certified class action regarding a mass termination without notice or severance pay.

The employer had gone bankrupt, leaving the plaintiffs to pursue the directors and officers and their liability insurance policy.

After complex litigation and negotiations regarding the depletion of the insurance policy, a settlement was reached for approximately $1.77 million.

The court found the settlement to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class, providing significant recovery where there was high risk of none.

The court also approved class counsel's fee request of one-third of the settlement amount, noting the high risk undertaken and the excellent result achieved.

The plaintiff, a graphite mining company, sought an interlocutory injunction against two former senior executives and their new employer, a competing graphite company.

The plaintiff alleged the former employees breached their fiduciary duties, confidentiality obligations, and non-competition/non-solicitation agreements by surreptitiously securing employment with the competitor and usurping a corporate opportunity regarding a processing facility.

The court granted the injunction, finding a strong prima facie case of breach, irreparable harm due to the highly competitive nature of the industry and potential loss of first-to-market advantage, and that the balance of convenience favoured the plaintiff.

The plaintiff travel agency sued a former employee and her new employer for breach of a restrictive covenant, misappropriation of confidential information, and inducing breach of contract.

The defendants brought motions for summary judgment to dismiss the action.

The court found the restrictive covenant was an overly broad and unenforceable non-competition clause, as it lacked temporal limits and restricted accepting business from any of the plaintiff's clients.

The court also dismissed the claims for inducing breach of contract and breach of confidence, finding no enforceable contract existed and the information shared by the employee did not possess the requisite quality of confidence.

The defendants' motions for summary judgment were granted and the action was dismissed.

The plaintiff, a 68-year-old captive sales agent, brought an action for constructive dismissal after his employer proposed changes to his commission structure and requested he sign an updated employment agreement.

The plaintiff resigned, claiming a toxic work environment and a fundamental change to his employment terms, despite the employer offering 18 months of working notice on his existing terms.

The court dismissed the action, finding no constructive dismissal as the employer's conduct did not amount to a repudiation of the contract.

Furthermore, the court held that even if constructive dismissal had occurred, the plaintiff failed to mitigate his damages by refusing the reasonable opportunity to work out the notice period.