Hotel Employee Gets Early Check-out from Ontario Lawsuit

If an employee works in the United States for a multinational corporation with its corporate head office in Ontario, can that employee sue her former employer in the Ontario courts for wrongful dismissal and violations of the Ontario Human Rights Code when she gets fired?

While the typical law answer will always be "it depends," in a decision released earlier this year, Sullivan v. Four Seasons Hotels Limited (2013), 2013 ONSC 4622, 116 OR (3d) 365, the Honourable Justice Sandra Chapnik of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that at least one employee could not.

Caveat Venditor - Non-Competition Agreements in Asset Sales

Can a five-year non-competition agreement be legally enforceable? If it is attached to the sale of a part of your business it can be, says the Supreme Court of Canada.

In the most recent of decisions from the highest court concerning non-competition agreements and restrictive covenants, Payette v. Guay inc., 2013 SCC 45, released September 12, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that non-competition agreements negotiated in the context of a sale are different from non-competition agreements included in a simple employment agreement.

If A Worker Falls in the Forest and No One is Around to See It, Does He Still Get WSIB Benefits?

What happens when an Ontario worker, covered by Ontario's workers' compensation program, gets hurt at work, but no one is around to witness it? Unfortunately, this question is all to relevant as more and more Ontario workers are asked to work alone in potentially dangerous situations.

In a decision released July 2, 2013 by the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (the "WSIAT"), Decision 570/13, 2013 ONWSIAT 1423 (CanLII), the WSIAT affirmed the approach set-out in Decision 835/11 to deal with circumstantial evidence of proof of a workplace accident.

Ontario Superior Court Awards Human Rights Damages

After years of waiting, the first decision from an Ontario Superior Court judge to award damages pursuant to section 46.1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code was published to CanLII on September 12, 2013. Wilson v. Solis Mexican Foods Inc., 2013 ONSC 5799, a decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice A. Duncan Grace concerned a claim for wrongful dismissal damages plus a claim for damages pursuant to the Human Rights Code.

Opportunities Look A Lot Like Hard Work

On September 18, 2013, Andrew Coyne wrote a provocative opinion piece for the National Post on the issue of unpaid internships: "If unpaid internships are exploitation, why don’t the kids just stay home?" In his essay Mr. Coyne advances the thesis that unpaid internships "are the job equivalent of a small-cap growth stock — no dividends, but the promise of heady capital gains in future." Essentially, the argument advanced by Mr. Coyne is that the reason some people elect to take up an unpaid internship is for the opportunities that are opened by so doing and they should be free to do so without interference.

But, Mr. Coyne's position got me thinking: are these internships really an opportunity for career advancement or are they, as others, such as Toronto labour lawyer Andrew Langille, argue, exploitation? Incredibly, I found myself thinking about something actor Ashton Kutcher said at 2013 Teen Choice Awards.