How to Efficiently Get Your Wrongful Dismissal Case Through the Ontario Superior Court of Justice

On July 6, 2022, the applicant commenced employment with her employer pursuant to the terms of a one-year fixed-term contract agreement. Sometime before the end of that one-year term, the employer terminated the contract.

On March 27, 2023, the employee caused the Ontario Superior Court of Justice sitting at Hamilton to issue an Application against the employer for damages equal to the balance of the contract.

The employee’s application was heard less than three months later and on June 21, before the contract was even set to expire, she had her decision.

For those critical of the pace at which some litigation can move, the claim stands as proof that with proper advocacy things can get done.

If a Termination Provision Potentially Violates the ESA, It Is Void: ONCA

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“If a [termination] provision’s application potentially violates the ESA at any date after hiring, it is void.”

In a very short endorsement released by the Court of Appeal for Ontario on April 5, 2017, Covenoho v. Pendylum Ltd., 2017 ONCA 284, Ontario’s top court confirmed what many of Ontario’s employment lawyers having been saying for years now: a poorly drafted employment agreement is going to prove costly.

Ontario Judge Finds Temporary Coverage Employee Entitled to Balance of One-Year Contract

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When is a contract to cover someone’s maternity leave a fixed-term employment contract? That was the question that the Honourable Justice Sidney N. Lederman of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice was asked to resolve in the case of Ballim v Bausch & Lomb Canada Inc., 2016 ONSC 6307.

In short, the answer is: While an indefinite contract with a termination clause is just what it sounds, so is a “one-year contract”. The lesson for employers is be careful what words you use.

Fixed Term Employment Agreements Just got More Expensive and Dangerous for Employers in Ontario

Is an employee who is employed under a fixed term employment contract, which does not provide for early termination without cause, entitled to payment of the unexpired portion of the contract on early termination of the contract? Is that employee required to mitigate his damages following termination? Those were the question answered by the Court of Appeal for Ontario on April 8, 2016, in the case of Howard v. Benson Group Inc. (The Benson Group Inc.), 2016 ONCA 256.

Writing for a unanimous bench, the Honourable Justice Bradley Miller held that fixed term employment agreements that do not contain a legally enforceable termination provision cannot be terminated by employers simply upon the provision of reasonable notice; the employee is entitled to payment of the unexpired portion of the contract on early termination of the contract. Perhaps of greater consequence was the court’s decision that employees employed pursuant to fixed term employment contracts are not required to mitigate their damages following termination. This is going to cost employers some serious money.

"Don't Forget: You're Here Forever" - Or Are You?

"Don’t forget: you’re here forever." Those five words (seven if you are particular) are said to occupy the plaque above Homer Simpson’s workstation. As regular, and one has to admit older, fans of the iconic television show will remember, in the episode “And Maggie Makes Three”, which originally aired on January 22, 1995, Homer’s boss, Mr. Burns, affixed said plaque above Homer’s workstation after our hero was forced to crawl back to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in search of his old, and much despised, job. And while Homer makes the best of the situation, covering certain parts of the plaque with photos of his infant daughter Maggie such that the plaque reads “Do it for her”, the plot point raises an interesting question about employment law in Ontario: Is there such a thing as a job “forever”?

One of the most common misconceptions about employment law in Ontario is that so long as an employee continues to satisfactorily perform his or her job, that employee cannot be fired. As this blog has frequently stated, that simply is not the case and employers generally have the right to terminate an employee’s employment for any reason at all, including no reason. (There are, of course, exceptions, such as the fact that an employer cannot dismiss an employee for a reason prohibited by statute; but those exceptions are few.)

But what if the employee’s employment contract says that the employer “shall not” dismiss the employee? Certainly that would entitle the employee to a job for life. And if the employer did, in fact, dismiss the employee, then she would be entitled to the wages that she would have earned for the rest of her life, no?

A 2003 case from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, authored by the Honourable Justice Rosalie Abella, who now sits on the Supreme Court of Canada, Foreman v. 818329 Ontario Limited, 2003 CanLII 57401 (ON CA) held that the contract term “[The employer] shall not dismiss [the employee]” did not, in fact, entitle the employee to a job for life.