What is the penalty or punishment for failing to honour the terms of settlement entered into in an Ontario Human Rights case?
Like most things in law, the answer is “it depends.” However, as the case of Inman v. Seniors on Site, 2016 HRTO 723 demonstrates, sometimes people can break their word, break a written contract, and seemingly get away with it.
If an employment contract’s termination provision has the potential to violate the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000, but is legally compliant at the time of termination is it legal or not?
The issue has been litigated several times. On February 16, 2016, the Honourable Justice Laurence A. Pattillo, writing on behalf of the Ontario Divisional Court, provided his position on the debate in the case of Garreton v Complete Innovations Inc., 2016 ONSC 1178 .
Is an employee required to prove that his employer “failed to accommodate” his parental status in order to succeed in a human rights case in Ontario? Or must the employee establish only that his employer breached his rights? Does an employee have a freestanding right to be "accommodated to the point of undue hardship?"
In a case concerning an employee whose employment was terminated after he took days off work to care for his sick children, Miraka v. A.C.D. Wholesale Meats Ltd., 2016 HRTO 41, Vice-Chair Sheri D. Price confirmed that an employer’s inability to accommodate an employee’s family status operates as a defence to an allegation; it is not a requirement of the applicant to show that the employer could not do so.
Is a request to take leave without pay from mid-July to the end of August, in order to care for one’s disabled child, a reasonable request, which an employer must accommodate to the point of undue hardship?
For most employers unfamiliar with the provisions of human rights legislation, the question may seem ridiculous or incredible. Certainly no employee could demand to have the entire summer off, simply because one’s child is not in school.
However, in a decision released by the Northwest Territories Human Rights Adjudication Panel, A.B. v Yellowknife (City), 2016 CanLII 19718 (NT HRAP), the answer was that the employee was entitled to have the requested leave of absence and a finding was made that the employer had discriminated against the employee, on the basis of family status, by failing to accommodate her to the point of undue hardship.
What is the legal effect of being “on probation”? While this blog has looked at the issue of an employee being employed pursuant to a written employment contract containing a period of probation, (see Ontario Court Awards Four Months Notice to Employee Fired while “On Probation”), a recent decision from the Ontario Divisional Court provides a new wrinkle to this issue.
In Nagribianko v Select Wine Merchants Ltd., 2016 ONSC 490 the Ontario Divisional Court, sitting as the court of appeal from a decision of the Ontario Small Claims Court found that “in the absence of bad faith, an employer is entitled to dismiss a probationary employee without notice and without giving reasons.”
For the reasons argued below, I would respectfully submit that the court in this case got it wrong.
