Who’s the Boss? Determining One’s Employer at Ontario Law

“Who's the Boss?” was an American sitcom created by Martin Cohan and Blake Hunter, which aired on ABC from September 20, 1984 to April 25, 1992. The series starred Tony Danza as a retired major league baseball player who relocates to Fairfield, Connecticut to work as a live-in housekeeper for a divorced advertising executive, Angela Bower, played by Judith Light. Also featured were Alyssa Milano, Danny Pintauro and Katherine Helmond.

The title of the show refers to the clear role reversal of the two lead actors, where a woman was the breadwinner and a man (although he was not her husband) stayed at home and took care of the house. The show is credited for challenging contemporary stereotypes of Italian-American young males as macho and boorish and wholly ignorant of life outside of urban working-class neighborhoods, as Tony was depicted as sensitive, intelligent and domestic with an interest in intellectual pursuits.

Things have changed in 30 years.

In employment law, sorting out “who’s the boss” can sometimes be no easier, as the case of Sproule v Tony Graham Lexus Toyota, 2016 ONSC 2220 (CanLII) makes plain.

Two Employers Under One Umbrella Both Get Soaked by Judge

Sometimes being under an umbrella is a good idea; like when it is raining. Other times, however being under the same umbrella as someone else is not such a good thing.

In employment law, the issue of whether two companies are a “common employer” or ‘stand under the same umbrella’ can be important when calculating a dismissed employee’s length of service; the same being one of the critical factors for calculating a dismissed employee’s entitlement to reasonable notice of termination.

In the case of Dear v Glamour Designs Ltd., 2015 ONSC 5094 (CanLII), the Honourable Justice S.A.Q. Akhtar held that there were simply too many interconnecting factors between two related companies to say that the two were anything but a common employer. The employers were found to be one and the same for the purposes of calculating the employee’s length of service.