Are public school teachers protected from unreasonable search and seizure by section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms if the search and seizure is performed in the workplace by their employers?
As stated by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the case of Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario v. York Region District School Board, 2022 ONCA 476, “There is no doubt that they are.”
Can an employee extinguish his statutory right to severance pay by way of a full and final release signed in the context of a share sale?
According to a 2018 decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Kerzner v. American Iron & Metal Company Inc., 2018 ONCA 989 (CanLII), the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”
The case has real implications for those who practice employment law in the context of the sale of a business.
Are an employer’s financial circumstances a relevant consideration in determining the period of reasonable notice to which a wrongfully dismissed employee is entitled?
That was the issue that the Court of Appeal for Ontario had to answer in the case of Michela v. St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic School, 2015 ONCA 801.
In answering the question “no”, the court could not have been any more succinct or clear: “An employer’s financial circumstances may well be the reason for terminating a contract of employment – the event that gives rise to the employee’s right to reasonable notice. But an employer’s financial circumstances are not relevant to the determination of reasonable notice in a particular case: they justify neither a reduction in the notice period in bad times nor an increase when times are good.”
