5 total
Summary judgment granted awarding 24 months' notice and bonus entitlements to wrongfully dismissed airline employee.
The plaintiff, a 52-year-old long-term employee of Air Canada, was terminated without cause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a motion for summary judgment, the court awarded a 24-month reasonable notice period.
The court found the plaintiff was entitled to damages for lost group benefits, pension contributions, and potential 2021 bonus payments, as the employment contract did not unambiguously limit these common law rights.
Claims for travel privileges and a 25th-anniversary award were dismissed as they were non-contractual privileges.
The employer failed to prove the plaintiff did not reasonably mitigate her damages.
OLRB related employer declaration set aside as unreasonable for failing to consider collective bargaining history.
The applicants sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) decision declaring them 'related employers' under s. 1(4) of the Labour Relations Act, 1995.
The union had argued that the employer's use of independent contractors eroded bargaining rights.
The Divisional Court found the OLRB Vice Chair's decision unreasonable because it failed to consider the history of collective bargaining, the collective agreement, and letters of understanding regarding the employer's longstanding practice of contracting out work.
The court held that this failure led to a decontextualized analysis of the employer's control over the contractors.
The court set aside the OLRB decision and remitted the matter for a fresh hearing before a different Vice Chair.
Board's narrow interpretation of farm worker exemption was unreasonable; exemption applies to centralized post-harvest facility.
The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision affirming a compliance order that required the applicant to pay overtime to employees at its centralized sweet corn processing facility.
The Board had found that the facility was not a 'farm' and the work was not 'directly related to primary production' under the farm worker exemption in Regulation 285/01.
The Divisional Court held that the Board's decision was unreasonable because it disregarded uncontradicted expert and operational evidence, adopted an arbitrary interpretation that created absurd results, and failed to properly balance the protective purpose of the exemption.
The application was granted, the Board's decision was set aside, and the court declared that the farm worker exemption applied to the employees.
Human rights application dismissed as abandoned after the applicant failed to attend the scheduled hearing.
The applicant filed an application under section 34 of the Human Rights Code alleging employment discrimination.
After failing to comply with disclosure obligations and subsequent Tribunal directions, the applicant failed to attend the scheduled hearing.
The Tribunal held down the start of the hearing for 45 minutes, but the applicant did not appear or communicate with the Tribunal.
Consequently, the application was dismissed as abandoned.
Human rights application deferred pending conclusion of concurrent OLRB review of ESA pregnancy reprisal claim.
The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment on the basis of ancestry, sex, and pregnancy.
The respondent requested that the application be deferred because the applicant had commenced a concurrent reprisal claim under the Employment Standards Act, which was currently under review by the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
The Tribunal found that the ESA claim and the human rights application raised similar issues and overlapping facts regarding pregnancy discrimination.
To avoid concurrent proceedings and inconsistent decisions, the Tribunal ordered the deferral of the application pending the conclusion of the OLRB matter.
