3 total
Wrongful dismissal damages reduced for failure to mitigate; aggravated and punitive damages for bad faith upheld.
The employee was constructively dismissed from her position as Chief Operating Officer after requesting a salary increase.
The employer alleged cause but later withdrew the defence, though it continued to assert performance issues throughout the litigation.
The motion judge awarded 12 months' notice, $50,000 in aggravated damages for bad faith in the manner of dismissal, and $25,000 in punitive damages for reprehensible litigation conduct.
On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the notice period and the aggravated and punitive damages awards, but reduced the damages in lieu of notice to six months' compensation because the employee had unreasonably rejected a comparable job offer seven months post-termination.
Motion to add plaintiff nunc pro tunc denied; deliberate substitution of parties is not a misnomer.
The plaintiff moved to add its founder back into the action as a plaintiff nunc pro tunc, arguing misnomer.
The founder had originally commenced the action in his own name but subsequently obtained an ex parte order substituting the corporate plaintiff for himself.
The court dismissed the motion, finding that the deliberate decision to substitute the parties meant the founder was not always the intended plaintiff, and thus the test for misnomer was not met.
However, the court granted leave to amend the statement of claim to add the founder as a plaintiff without prejudice to any limitation period defence, as agreed by the defendants.
Amendment adding claim for value of book of business denied as statute‑barred.
The plaintiff in a wrongful dismissal action brought a motion to amend his statement of claim nearly five years after commencing the action.
The proposed amendments sought to add a claim for damages relating to the value of the plaintiff’s investment advisor “book of business” and alleged entitlement to working notice to transition clients.
The court held that the proposed amendments were not tenable at law because they effectively sought double recovery for lost income and relied on a non‑existent entitlement to working notice.
In addition, the amendments constituted a new cause of action based on new material facts and were therefore statute‑barred under the Limitations Act, 2002.
The court granted leave only for certain unopposed amendments and permitted limited further discovery.
