Marsha Lindsay

The appellant appealed the dismissal of his wrongful dismissal claim.

The trial judge had found that a mutual release signed by the appellant was a complete defence to the action, as there was no evidence of coercion or unconscionability.

The appellant also appealed the trial judge's decision to allow an amendment to the statement of defence at the opening of the trial.

The Divisional Court found no merit in either ground of appeal and dismissed the appeal.

The respondent/defendant brought a cross-appeal regarding costs following a wrongful dismissal action under the Simplified Procedure Rule where the plaintiff sought $25,000.

The defendant had made a Rule 49 offer of one month's salary which the plaintiff did not accept.

The Divisional Court allowed the cross-appeal, finding no reason to deny the successful party its costs.

The court fixed costs for the trial, appeal, and cross-appeal at $10,000 all-inclusive, payable by the appellant/plaintiff to the respondent/defendant.

The applicant union filed an application for certification and two unfair labour practice complaints against the responding employer.

The parties entered into a memorandum of settlement, resulting in the termination of the unfair labour practice complaints.

For the certification application, the parties agreed to count all but two segregated ballots.

The representation vote resulted in a 122-122 tie.

Because not more than fifty percent of the ballots were cast in favour of the union, the application for certification was dismissed.

The union applied for certification and challenged the inclusion of 18 lead hands in the bargaining unit, arguing they exercised managerial functions under section 1(3)(b) of the Labour Relations Act, 1995.

The Board found that the lead hands primarily assigned work from a pre-determined schedule, performed similar tasks to other employees, and had no independent discretion over hiring, discipline, performance evaluations, or wage increases.

Consequently, the Board concluded that the lead hands did not exercise managerial functions and were properly included in the bargaining unit.

The applicant, a former non-tenured professor, filed a duty of fair representation complaint against her faculty association, alleging it failed to act on her sexual harassment and interference complaints against a colleague for over a year.

The union contended the applicant initially instructed it not to act and that it later successfully prompted a formal university investigation.

Finding fundamental factual disputes regarding the union's actions and the applicant's instructions between March 1998 and June 1999, the Board referred the matter to a hearing, declining to dismiss the case on a preliminary basis despite potential remedial difficulties.

The applicant union applied for certification to represent a municipal-wide bargaining unit of employees of a cleaning contractor in the City of London.

The responding party employer argued for a site-specific bargaining unit covering only ten specific locations, citing concerns about flexibility in bidding on future contracts.

The Board applied its established test for determining appropriate bargaining units, noting a strong aversion to fragmentation and a presumption that broader, municipal-wide units are generally appropriate unless they cause serious labour relations problems.

The Board found the employer's proposed unit inappropriate, particularly as it would have excluded a single employee at an eleventh site, and certified the union for the municipal-wide unit.

The applicant requested an adjournment of the scheduled hearing.

The responding employees did not attend the hearing, while counsel for the Ministry of Labour was present.

The adjudicator granted the adjournment request for the reasons set out in the applicant's correspondence, and directed the registrar to set a new hearing date.