Is being 62 years young, 37 years tenured, a Senior Vice President, terminated without cause, and left without any comparable employment opportunities “exceptional circumstances” warranting an award of pay in lieu of notice greater than 24 months? According to the Court of Appeal for Ontario (Pepall, Trotter and Harvison Young JJ.A.) in its decision in Dawe v. The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada, 2019 ONCA 512 (CanLII), the answer is "no".
What happens when ambiguous facts get resolved via summary judgment and then appealed? One gets decisions like Ariss v. NORR Limited Architects & Engineers, 2019 ONCA 449, which unfortunately add more confusion to the law of termination than clarity.
Does the fact that an assault occurs in the workplace automatically trigger the protections of subsection 50(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act?
In a case involving a fight at a male strip club, Mazen Jamal Chams Eddin v 938088 Ontario Limited, 2019 CanLII 37953 (ON LRB), Ontario Labour Relations Board Alternate Chair Matthew R. Wilson held that it did not.
Does the failure to respond to a request for a workplace harassment investigation warrant an award of aggravated damages, where the employee is later terminated for complaining about such harassment?
In Bassanese v. German Canadian News Company Limited et al., 2019 ONSC 1343 (CanLII), the Honourable Justice Lorne Sossin of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that it does.
Does the tort of “harassment” exist at Ontario law? And, if not, is it time for Ontario’s court to recognize the existence of such tort? The answer to both of those questions, as provided by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Merrifield v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 ONCA 205, is “no.”
