What is the appropriate notice period for a 62 year-old, 37 years tenured Senior Vice President, who is terminated without cause and left without any comparable employment opportunities?
According to the decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice D.J. Gordon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Dawe v. Equitable Life Insurance Company, 2018 ONSC 3130, a minimum of 36 months.
Can an employee sue her former supervisor for sexual harassment if she has signed a Full and Final Release in favour of her former employer?
In the case of Watson v. The Governing Council of the Salvation Army of Canada, 2018 ONSC 1066 (CanLII), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that she might not be precluded by the release.
Can an employee sue her employer if she is sexually assaulted at work by a co-worker? In a decision by the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (the “WSIAT”), Decision No. 3096/17, 2018 ONWSIAT 1563 (CanLII), the answer was once again, “not if the employee is entitled to WSIB benefits.”
It is a well-known fact that employers must provide their employees with “reasonable notice” of the termination of their employment. But, is there a qualitative component as to what is “reasonable”, in addition to a quantitative component?
In the case of Wood v. CTS of Canada Co., 2017 ONSC 5695, the Honourable Justice John R. Sproat, ruled that there was. Later, and for reasons reported as Wood v. CTS of Canada Co., 2018 ONCA 758, the Court of Appeal for Ontario agreed that not all notice periods are created equal.
Given all the other noise about what it takes to make a contractual termination clause legally binding, one can be forgiven for overlooking the most basic rule: The language used must be clear.
The contractual termination clause considered in the case of McMichael v The New Zealand & Australian Lamb Company, 2018 ONSC 5422 (CanLII), about which I recently blogged for other reasons in my post, Choice of Law Provisions: Application of the Ontario Employment Standards Act to International Employees, clearly demonstrates this most basic of rules.
