References present a double-edged sword for employers. On one hand, employers typically want former employees to find new jobs as doing so will get them off the company’s severance payroll. On the other hand, providing references may expose employers to dual-pronged liability in negligence and/or defamation. Given the recent news that Canada lost nearly 46,000…
Employers have every reason to vigorously protect their confidential information. In a competitive marketplace, the maximum value of a work product is highly dependent on exclusivity of ownership. And as the saying goes, once the “genie is out of the bottle” it can never be back in. However, a recent case from the Ontario Superior…
As the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for”. Two former employees of now-defunct Trillium Manufacturing are suing the Ministry of Labour over advice they received from its ESA hotline. The two employees accepted 8 weeks’ pay-in-lieu of notice from their employer as the ESA hotline told them that was their maximum legal entitlement,…
In unionized workplaces, temporary layoffs have long been an employer’s most effective way of responding to economic downturns. But what about non-unionized employers? Traditionally, unless an employer can show that it has an implied or express contractual right to temporarily layoff, a court will find that the interruption to employment will constitute a constructive dismissal…
A recent case out of Quebec discusses the level of procedural fairness that may be owed during a workplace investigation for a public institution. In Ditomene c. Boulanger, two employees at a CEGEP (a public school) filed a complaint of psychological harassment under Quebec law against their superior, Mr. Ditomene. The CEGEP retained Ms. Boulanger…