Public Holidays under the Ontario Employment Standards Act

For most workers in Ontario, the first Monday in August and Easter Monday are paid days off work. However, neither is a “public holiday” as defined by the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000. What that means is that the rules surrounding statutory holiday pay do not apply to “the Civic holiday” or to “Easter Monday.” But, that does not necessarily mean that they cannot be treated by any particular employer as a ‘holiday;' on this point see the post Any Day Can be a Holiday.

The points above provide an opening to discuss what the rules surrounding such holidays actually are.

Explaining The Duty to Mitigate

The duty on dismissed employees to mitigate their damages following dismissal is without question the most difficult employment law concept to have to explain. The issue is difficult not because of the subject matter, but because many people that have been fired without any reason and without sufficient notice, find the legal rule that they must now act in their employer’s interest a little displeasing.

Overtime Pay and Mobile Technology

In July of 2012, the CBC featured a story on the issue of unpaid overtime.

In that piece, the author essentially argued that, “Mobile technology has helped employers squeeze more productivity out of their employees, but all those hours of work while technically off the clock leaves them open to lawsuits over unpaid overtime.”

Here is why, from an Ontario employment perspective, the CBC author may be correct.

Deemed Dismissal Results in Award of Common Law Damages

To many the question “Have I been fired?” may seem a little ridiculous. Typically one knows whether or not he has been terminated. And although usually the termination itself comes as a surprise, there is little question as to certainty of the situation.

And yet, in late 2011 a case came before the Court of Appeal for Ontario that asked the question of whether or not an employee was entitled to common law damages following his “deemed” dismissal from employment. (NB: for a description of what is meant by “common law damages” see my definition in Explaining Wrongful Dismissal under Ontario Employment Law)

The Right to be Free from Harassment... Online

In an earlier post (You Can’t Do That on the Internet) I canvassed what some Ontario Labour Relations Tribunals have done with respect to online conduct. In a July 2012 decision, Taylor-Baptiste v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 2012 HRTO 1393 (CanLII), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario weighed in on the issue.

Ontario Recognizes Tort of Invasion of Privacy

(c) istock/vchal

When the Court of Appeal for Ontario released its decision in the case of Jones v. Tsige, 2012 ONCA 32 many commented upon how Ontario law had finally recognized the tort of "invasion of personal privacy."

However, saying that the Court of Appeal recognized “the tort” is not entirely accurate. What the Court of Appeal recognized was that there are, in fact, four torts that fall under the umbrella of ‘invasion of privacy.’

The Requirement to Maintain Disability Benefits on Dismissal

As regular readers of this blog may know, I have a certain affinity for the decision of the late Justice Echlin in Brito v. Canac Kitchens, 2011 ONSC 1011 (CanLII), affirmed by the Court of Appeal for Ontario, 2012 ONCA 61.

The reason why the decision in Brito is so important is that Justice Echlin ordered an employer who had provided to its employees a group insurance plan to essentially stand in the disability insurer’s shoes when the employee was dismissed and the employer made no arrangements for the dismissed employee to maintain that insurance coverage beyond the statutory notice period; a decision that cost the employer nearly $200,000 in what was otherwise a modest wrongful dismissal case.