Sonia Regenbogen

The defendant employer brought a motion to sever the claims of four former senior employees who sued for constructive dismissal.

The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant made similar changes to their employment terms, including eliminating bonuses and altering reporting structures.

The court dismissed the motion, finding a sufficient nexus between the claims under Rule 5.02(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure and concluding that severing the claims would cause undue complication, delay, and risk of inconsistent results.

This is a costs endorsement following the dismissal of the Plaintiff's motions in a prior decision.

The parties were unable to agree on costs, and the Plaintiff, who was self-represented, failed to deliver written costs submissions despite being given an extension.

The court declined to grant further extensions, noting the Plaintiff's capability as a self-represented litigant.

The court then proceeded to fix costs, reducing the amounts sought by the Defendant and the non-party, AB Sciex Ltd., finding their requested time expenditures to be beyond what was reasonably anticipated given the complexity of the issues.

The Plaintiff was ordered to pay fixed costs to both the Defendant and AB Sciex Ltd.

The self-represented plaintiff brought motions seeking to enforce a prior production order against a non-party, Sciex, and for leave to examine three former Sciex employees and the defendant's wife for discovery.

The court dismissed the motion for production, finding that Sciex had complied with the order and could not produce documents that did not exist.

The court also dismissed the motions for leave to examine the non-parties, concluding that the plaintiff failed to satisfy the requirements of Rule 31.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, particularly as she had already obtained the relevant information from other sources and it would not be unfair to require her to proceed to trial without the examinations.

The plaintiff brought a motion for further documentary production from the defendant and from a non-party, her former employer AB Sciex Ltd. The plaintiff sought the defendant's unredacted bank statement to corroborate a past romantic relationship, which the defendant agreed to produce.

The plaintiff also sought HR records and video footage from the non-party employer relating to harassment complaints made by the defendant and the termination of her employment.

The court ordered the non-party to produce records of the harassment investigations and correspondence regarding the plaintiff's termination, finding them relevant to her claims of malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of mental distress, but dismissed the requests for other HR records and video footage.

RONA Inc. brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss a wrongful dismissal action initiated by Brian Roskaft.

Roskaft, who had been on long-term disability (LTD) since 2012, was terminated in 2015 on the grounds of frustration of contract, with RONA asserting there was no reasonable likelihood of his return to work.

The court considered the totality of evidence, including post-termination medical information, to determine if the contract was frustrated at the time of dismissal.

The motion was granted, and Roskaft's claim was dismissed.

The plaintiff, an assistant store manager, was terminated for just cause after failing to prevent a workplace safety violation where a wheelchair-bound employee was lifted to a second floor using an order picker forklift.

The court applied the McKinley contextual approach and found that while the plaintiff's failure to stop the lift was serious misconduct, it did not strike at the heart of the employment relationship to justify summary dismissal.

The court awarded the plaintiff 10 months' salary in lieu of notice, but declined to award aggravated or moral damages.