A 21-month notice win, undone by one number the company almost forgot to collect
A veteran seed salesman won his fight to prove he was effectively forced out after nearly two decades on the job. Then the arithmetic turned against him, and he walked away owing his former company money.
In a decision released July 16, 2026, Justice Spencer Nicholson of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that the salesman had been constructively dismissed by ProRich Seeds when it withheld his monthly cheque, and set his damages at $56,000.70 based on a 21-month notice period. But the company's counterclaim for years of overpaid advances succeeded in part, and the net result was that the worker owed ProRich $3,333.49.
The worker sold ProRich's seed to farmers in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario from 2002 until September 2021, paid through monthly advances against commission. He argued he was an employee, or at minimum a dependent contractor, and therefore entitled to reasonable notice. ProRich maintained he was an independent contractor whose real living came from buying and selling cattle.
Justice Nicholson found he was not an employee, concluding that ProRich set no hours, no territory, and no rules on how he sold, and issued him tax slips for self-employed commission. But across roughly 19 years the relationship carried enough exclusivity of time and income to place him in the intermediate class of dependent contractor, which does carry a right to...
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