Stephen Moreau

The plaintiff moved to enforce a settlement agreement purportedly reached via email correspondence between counsel following a full-day mediation in a wrongful dismissal action.

The defendant argued the emails only represented an 'agreement to agree' and that the settlement was conditional on Board approval of an additional stock option grant, which was denied.

The court found that the parties had agreed on all essential terms and that the defendant's Board had no reasonable basis to decline the stock option grant.

The motion was granted, and the settlement agreement was ordered to be enforced.

The plaintiffs moved to certify a class action against the Government of Ontario for damages resulting from the early termination of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot project.

The plaintiffs alleged breach of contract, breach of undertaking, negligence, breach of public law duty, and breach of section 7 of the Charter.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the certification motion, finding it plain and obvious that the statement of claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

The court held that the relationship was not contractual, the government's decision to cancel the program was a core policy decision protected by common law and statutory immunity, and there is no constitutional right to the continuation of a government program.

The plaintiffs, former employees of CTS, brought a summary judgment motion in a class proceeding arising from a mass termination following a plant closure.

CTS provided employees with approximately 12 months' working notice but did not file the required Form 1 notice with the Director of Employment Standards until the final 8 weeks.

The court held that the ESA requires Form 1 notice on the first day of the notice period provided by the employer, not just the statutory minimum period.

Because CTS failed to provide timely Form 1 notice, the working notice provided prior to the Form 1 filing was deemed void for all purposes, depriving CTS of credit for that period.

The court also found that requiring employees to work excessive overtime during the notice period negated the working notice for those weeks.

However, the court dismissed the claim for bad faith damages.

The representative plaintiffs in two certified class actions brought a motion to complete the administration of the settlement, discharge the administrator, and approve a cy-près distribution of the remaining $5,373.74 to a charity.

The court granted the discharge but denied the cy-près distribution.

Applying the principle that cy-près should not be used when direct compensation is practicable, the court ordered the remaining funds to be distributed equally among six class members who had submitted late claims due to mail delivery failures.