Ontario Superior Court Says that You Cannot Sue for the Tort of Sexual Harassment

Is the tort of sexual harassment a recognized cause of action in the Province of Ontario? Put another way, in Ontario, can you sue in court if you are sexually harassed?

Two days ago, on April 16, 2017, I blogged about the case of Merrifield v The Attorney General, 2017 ONSC 1333, released February 28, 2017, in which the Honourable Justice Mary E. Vallee of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that “harassment” was recognized as a tort upon which a civil cause of action may be based. (See Ontario Superior Court Awards $100,000 in General Damages for Tort of Harassment.)

Surely, one would think, if you can sue for “harassment” in Ontario’s courts, you can sue for sexual harassment. However, as the case of K.L. v 1163957799 Quebec Inc., 2015 ONSC 2417 (CanLII) demonstrates, few things in law make such sense.

Update: The Court of Appeal for Ontario has since said that employees cannot sue for the Tort of Harassment either. See Tort of Harassment Not Available in Ontario Employment Context.

Judge Orders Costs of Injunction against Solicitation “In the Cause”

The dirty secret of contract law is that a contract is only as good as a party’s ability to enforce it. Typically, this blog focuses on the legal ability of an employer to enforce certain elements of an employment contract; whether that element be termination provisions, about which I write frequently, or restrictive covenants, such as non-solicitation or non-competition agreements, about which I write much less frequently.

Putting legal considerations aside for a moment, there are also practical considerations in attempting to enforce contractual provisions, not the least of which is the element of cost.

In his reasons for decision in Accreditation Canada International v Guerra, 2016 ONSC 6184, the Honourable Justice Patrick Smith of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice sitting at Ottawa, highlights one of the main practical impediments to an employer attempting to enforce restrictive covenants: the cost.