Carrington Hickey

The plaintiff, Crawford Packaging Inc., brought a motion for an interlocutory injunction against its former salesperson, Orazio Dorata, and corporate defendants, alleging breach of non-competition, non-solicitation, and employee poaching clauses in Dorata's employment contract, as well as failure to return company property.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to meet the high threshold for a quia timet injunction, as no actual harm had occurred, and any future harm was speculative.

The court also noted that contractual provisions deeming fiduciary duty or irreparable harm are ineffective if not supported by legal standards.

An employee's employment was terminated without cause pursuant to an employment contract containing a termination clause that limited severance pay to base salary only, thereby excluding commissions.

The employee argued the clause violated the Employment Standards Act, 2000 by contracting out of an employment standard.

The contract also contained a severability clause.

The application judge used the severability clause to excise only the offending sentence, leaving the remainder of the termination clause enforceable.

The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that where a termination clause contracts out of any employment standard, the entire termination clause is void under section 5(1) of the ESA, and the severability clause cannot be used to save it.

The employee is therefore entitled to common law reasonable notice.