Overview - Employers increasingly face challenges regarding whether termination provisions in their employment agreements will be determined to be enforceable if challenged in court. As we continue to see increasing court...more
In Timmins v. Artisan Cells, 2025 CanLII 2387, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice found, in an undefended claim, that the employers “by their correspondence and actions” repudiated the employee’s employment agreement when...more
In December 2024, the Court of Appeal for Ontario released its highly anticipated decision in Dufault v. Ignace (Township). The three-judge panel determined that the “for cause” termination clause contained in the employee’s...more
Ontario has recently published regulations offering employers further details on the new amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) related to the hiring process....more
Wilds v. 1959612 Ontario Inc., 2024 ONSC 3452, involves a wrongful dismissal action in which the employee brought a motion for summary judgment. The court found the termination provisions in her employment agreement were...more
On November 27, 2024, the Ontario government introduced Bill 229, Working for Workers Six Act, 2024 (Bill 229). This announcement comes just one-month after Ontario’s Working for Workers Five Act, 2024 (Bill 190) received...more
In Bertsch v. Datastealth Inc., 2024 ONSC 5593, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed an employee’s claim for common law reasonable notice of termination on a Rule 21 motion....more
The Court of Appeal for Ontario found that settlement documents signed after an employee separated from employment prevented him from suing for the value of vested stock options....more
Marshall v. Mercantile Exchange Corporation, 2024 CanLII 71128 (ONSC), is an action for wrongful dismissal where the employee claimed he could not mitigate his damages by seeking alternative employment indefinitely because...more
In De Castro v. Arista Homes Limited, 2024 ONSC 1035, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice (Court) held the termination provision in an employment contract was unenforceable because it defined “cause” more broadly than does...more
In Croke v. VuPoint System Ltd., 2024 ONCA 354, the Court of Appeal for Ontario (OCA) upheld the Superior Court of Justice – Ontario (SCJ)’s summary judgment decision that an employee’s refusal to comply with their employer’s...more
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently held that an employee’s failure to meet COVID-19 vaccination requirements imposed by a third party amounted to frustration of the employment contract. As a result, there was no obligation...more
In Dufault v. The Corporation of the Township of Ignace, 2024 ONSC 1029, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that the termination provisions of a fixed-term employment contract were illegal and unenforceable because...more
In Dufault v. The Corporation of the Township of Ignace ("Dufault"), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, on a summary judgment motion, found the termination without cause provision of a fixed-term employment contract...more
In Gannon v. Kinsdale Carriers, 2024 ONSC 1060, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice denied common law reasonable notice to an employee who was wrongfully dismissed from her employment on the basis that she failed to...more
As you may have heard or read in our earlier blog, More Changes to Ontario's Employment-Related Legislation Are on the Horizon, the Ontario government introduced Bill 79, Working for Workers Act, 2023 in late March 2023. On...more
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently released its decision in Kopyl v Losani Homes (not yet cited) (the “Decision”), providing insight into the enforceability of fixed terms in employment agreements in circumstances...more
An arbitrator recently issued the first award in Ontario to address and uphold the reasonableness of a hospital vaccination policy that provides for the termination of employment for non-compliance. In Lakeridge Health and...more
In Teljeur v Aurora Hotel Group, 2023 ONSC 1324, a wrongful dismissal case, the court awarded the plaintiff-employee seven months’ damages for reasonable notice, and $15,000 in moral damages due to the employer’s bad-faith...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
On March 20, 2023, the Ontario government introduced Bill 79, Working for Workers Act, 2023 (Bill 79), which, if passed, will introduce changes to Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) and other employment-related...more
In Croke v. VuPoint Systems Ltd., 2023 ONSC 1234, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice decided that an employee’s refusal to comply with mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements resulted in the frustration of the parties’...more
In the recent Steele v. The Corporation of the City of Barrie, 2022 ONSC 7245 decision (“Steele”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice provided some insight into when longer term fixed-term contracts can be enforceable....more
In Lake v. La Presse, 2022 ONCA 742, the only issue on appeal was whether the lower court erred in reducing the employee’s wrongful dismissal damages for failure to mitigate. The Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) set aside the...more
In a wrongful dismissal action against four corporate defendants that were part of a family business, the plaintiff claimed the defendants were common employers, that he was their employee prior to his dismissal, and was...more