Ontario Labour Relations Board
3622-98-ES Nicollette Greer, Applicant v. Ace Rivet & Fastener Inc. and Ministry of Labour, Responding Parties.
Employment Practices Branch File No. 40 009788
BEFORE: Russell Goodfellow, Vice-Chair.
APPEARANCES: Nicollette Greer and Todd Greer for the applicant; Christopher M. Andree, Katrina Litchfield and Claude Litchfield for the responding party employer; Laurie Eisenberg for the Ministry.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; April 3, 2000
Decision
1This is an employee application for review of a refusal by an Employment Standards Officer to issue an order to pay termination pay.
2The legal issue between the parties was whether the employee was constructively dismissed. The factual issue was whether the owner/president of the responding party employer (the applicant’s father) intentionally pushed the applicant when she was kneeling to pick up some papers, thereby causing her to fall backwards. The applicant sustained no physical injury. Following the incident, the applicant indicated that, in the circumstances, she was no longer prepared to work for the employer and she has not worked for it since.
3The employer agreed that if the applicant was intentionally pushed, then she was constructively dismissed. However, the employer denied that the applicant was intentionally pushed; rather, it submitted that any physical contact was entirely inadvertent.
4After hearing the parties’ evidence, I concluded that there was no intention to push or harm the applicant, but neither was the contact inadvertent. I concluded that it was more probable than not that the applicant’s father, following a heated dispute with the applicant, reached out to the applicant in an effort to take her by the shoulder or, more likely, the chin to cause her to look up at him while he was speaking to her. I further found that the applicant’s father’s hand then made contact with some part of the applicant’s torso, perhaps her shoulder, causing her to fall backwards from her haunches and onto her backside. The applicant who, by her own admission, is quite athletic and physically able, suffered no harm.
5In the circumstances, I was unable to conclude that this contact amounted to a constructive dismissal and I dismissed the application.
“Russell Goodfellow”
for the Board