Employment Law This Week: Constructive Discharge Claims, Class Waivers, Hiring Bias, Electronic Record-Keeping Rule, Equal Pay
Our employment law update for August covers a case about the iniquity exception to legal privilege, a whistleblowing case involving a long-delayed judgment and third party reports, and a case on whether discriminatory actions...more
The Connecticut Appellate Court recently ruled that a septuagenarian teacher’s claims that she was forced to resign because of age discrimination were untimely. The ruling distinguishes Connecticut law from a 2016 Supreme...more
On February 1, 2024, the Superior Court of Quebec decided that a senior executive with 35 years of service who had been constructively dismissed was not entitled to severance pay because he had declined the new position the...more
In Van Hee v Glenmore Inn Holdings Ltd., 2023 ABCJ 244 (Glenmore), the Alberta Court of Justice found that an employer’s mandatory vaccination policy was a reasonable, justified and lawful response to the extraordinary...more
Better to have the courage of your convictions. I'm sure you've heard of "quiet quitting," when an unhappy employee does the bare minimum to get by and keep drawing a paycheck, but doesn't care much about the job beyond...more
In Pham v. Qualified Metal Fabricators Ltd., 2023 ONCA 255, the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) found that unless an employee’s employment contract provides otherwise via an express or implied term, an employer’s unilateral lay...more
Until recently, an employee generally could not establish a constructive discharge claim (that they had been forced to resign due to intolerable conditions) without first demonstrating that they informed their employer about...more
Just six weeks after holding in Coutinho v. Ocular Health Centre Ltd. that Ontario Regulation 228/20 (IDEL Regulation) under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) did not remove an employee’s common law right to claim...more
Too little, too late - employer could not cure fundamental breach - If an employer commits a repudiatory breach of contract, an employee is entitled to accept the breach by resigning. They can then claim unfair constructive...more
Last May, the government of Ontario filed Ontario Regulation 228/20 (IDEL Regulation) under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA). The Regulation provides that an employee in a non-unionized workplace who, any time during...more
In McGuinty v. 1845035 Ontario Inc. (McGuinty Funeral Home), 2020 ONCA 816 (McGuinty), the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the Ontario Superior Court’s decision to award an employee one of the highest damage awards ever...more
In Pinter-Brown v. Regents of the University of California, the California Court of Appeal’s Second Appellate District recently reversed a blockbuster $13 million judgment that was entered against UCLA in favor of one of its...more
Constructive discharge is a form of wrongful termination under the Puerto Rico Unjust Dismissal statute, Act No. 80 of May 30, 1976 (“Act 80”). Unlike in traditional wrongful termination cases, plaintiffs alleging...more
On January 1, 2020, California businesses faced several new laws that may significantly impact business operations, including AB 5 (codifying the “ABC” test) and AB 51 (restricting the use of mandatory arbitration). On the...more
UK employers should proceed with caution when suspending employees, and always consider carefully whether taking such action is appropriate in the circumstances, as highlighted by the recent case in the Employment Appeal...more
A recent decision of the Court of Appeal of Ontario, Colistro v. Tbaytel, 2019 ONCA 197, puts employers in Ontario on notice that if they re-hire an employee who has a history of victimizing a current employee by sexual...more
The Employment Act will be amended to cover all employees, including those in managerial and executive positions earning a basic monthly salary in excess of SGD4,500. Claims for wrongful dismissal will be extended to include...more
Black Employee Had to Quit Due to Racial Slurs and Harassment, Federal Agency Charges - STATESVILLE, N.C. - Joe's Old Fashioned Bar-B-Que, Inc., doing business as Lancaster's BBQ & Wings, a North Carolina corporation,...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Judge v. Shikellamy Sch. Dist., No. 17-2189, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27229 (3d Cir. Sep. 24, 2018), the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals adopted a new approach to constructive discharge cases where an employee...more
All Things Brexit - Earlier this month, as the latest formal development concerning Brexit, the U.K. government published a White Paper entitled ‘The Future Relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union’...more
In Delaronde v. Legend Classic Homes, Ltd., No. 17-20027 (January 18, 2018), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s denial of an employer’s post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law, finding...more
Proving that non-economic damages and perhaps attorney’s fees are driving forces in litigation, constructive discharge clams were asserted and survived summary judgment in a federal district court action in Oregon. The...more
On September 7, 2017, the Eleventh Circuit in Hicks v. City of Tuscaloosa, 16-13003 held that breastfeeding is covered under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”). In Hicks, the doctor for a police officer with the...more
As anyone who’s been following the news is aware, President Trump has been publicly and repeatedly indicating his displeasure with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We are a non-partisan blog, so I’m not going to get into who’s...more
The concept of constructive discharge appears regularly in employment law cases and commentary, but we’ve found that it’s not always well understood. Because a constructive discharge can have all the consequences of a typical...more