Jeffrey P. Mitchell

The plaintiff, a 59-year-old senior executive with 14 years of service, was terminated without cause.

On a motion for summary judgment, the court determined the reasonable notice period to be 18 months.

The court held that the plaintiff was entitled to damages for his lost Sales Target Incentives (STI) during the notice period, as the policy did not unambiguously exclude it.

However, the court found that the Long Term Incentives (LTI) agreement unambiguously excluded recovery for unvested Restricted Stock Units.

The court ordered a trust and accounting mechanism for the remainder of the notice period to account for any mitigation earnings.

The plaintiff brought a motion for a permanent injunction to enforce non-competition and confidentiality clauses against two former employees and their new employer.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to establish a strong prima facie case for the non-competition breach because the businesses were not substantially similar and the clauses were overly broad and unenforceable.

Although there was a prima facie case of a minor confidentiality breach by one employee, the court found no irreparable harm and determined the balance of convenience favored the defendants.

The plaintiff in a wrongful dismissal action moved to strike references to a separation package offer from the defendant's statement of defence.

The defendant argued the offer was made with prejudice as it was the primary termination letter and not labelled 'without prejudice'.

The court found the offer was made without prejudice to 'buy peace', as it included an enhanced severance contingent on a release, contained a confidentiality clause, and was made to avoid litigation.

The court ordered the references struck from the statement of defence as irrelevant and potentially prejudicial.

The defendant employer brought a motion under Rule 21.01(1)(b) to strike the plaintiff’s human rights claim from an amended statement of claim arising from his termination following public statements about the Syrian conflict.

The defendant argued the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action because the alleged dismissal was based on political opinion, which is not a protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The court held that, accepting the pleaded facts as true, it was not plain and obvious that the plaintiff’s views could not constitute a creed linked to protected grounds such as religion or place of origin.

Accordingly, the human rights claim was allowed to proceed.

However, certain paragraphs of the pleading were struck under Rule 25.11 as irrelevant and prejudicial to a fair trial.