Employee's Invasion of Customer's Privacy can be Employer's Responsibility

Can an employer be held legally responsible if one of its employees deliberately invades upon the privacy of the employer’s customers? That question was one of the key issues in the recently decided class action certification motion in Evans v. The Bank of Nova Scotia, 2014 ONSC 2135 (CanLII).

The case involves a class action proceeding against the Bank of Nova Scotia and one of its former employees for breaching the privacy of the Bank’s customers.

The case was filed in Ottawa and the certification motion was decided by the Honourable Mr. Justice Robert Smith of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, sitting at Ottawa.

Sean Bawden, editor and primary author of this blog, formerly worked with plaintiff’s counsel and assisted in the formative stages of the case before transferring to Kelly Santini.

While the court did not expressly say that the answer to the question raised at the start of this post was “yes,” it did expressly refuse to say that the answer to the question is “no.”

Is There a Duty on Employers to Remain Profitable?

A provocative question was asked this week: does an employer owe its employees a duty to remain profitable? That was the question that the Honourable Justice Edward Morgan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice was asked to answer in the recently decided case of Lochran v. Duro-Test Canada Co., 2013 ONSC 706 (CanLII). Justice Morgan’s answer was no, it does not.