Kosteckyj v Paramount Resources Ltd, 2022 ABCA 230 is an important Alberta Court of Appeal (ABCA) decision relating to constructive dismissal, as it assesses the timing of an employee’s objection to an employer’s unilateral reduction of their compensation.

The employer in this case appealed the lower court’s judgment awarding the employee $107,247 in damages for constructive dismissal. The ABCA allowed the appeal and reduced the judgment to $97,190. At the ABCA, two decisions were rendered. In his decision, Justice Wakeling found it is reasonable for “a professional engineer and a healthy, knowledgeable and informed person” to have no more than 10 days from the day an employer unilaterally introduces a compensation reduction to communicate to the employer their lack of consent to the reduction, and that it is reasonable for an employee that lacks those attributes to have no more than 15 days.

Although Justice Pentelechuk and Justice Ho concurred with Justice Wakeling’s result, they preferred to avoid stating a specific time within which an employee would have to decide whether to accept the reduction. They did find, however, that in the unique circumstances, including the employee’s total years of service, 25 days was enough time for her to decide if she would accept the changes to her contract, or leave employment and claim constructive dismissal.

Background

The employee began to work for her employer’s predecessor in 2013. The predecessor was acquired by the employer in...

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