'The language needs to be very, very straightforward': employment lawyer explains risks of dispute resolution clauses in employment contracts
A recent Ontario court ruling sheds light on how dispute resolution clauses in employment agreements can lead to the very scenarios they are designed to avoid — especially when dealing with independent contractors.
The case, Fowlie et al v. Wrestling Canada Lutte, saw an employee contracted as Wrestling Canada Lutte’s complaints and appeal officer sue for breach of contract. According to his claim, he was denied his contracted right to a dispute resolution. A motion judge agreed with him in a 2023 decision – but this latest appeal reversed that decision and awarded the employer $17,000 in legal costs.
As employment lawyer Jordan Bailey, of Zubas Flett Liberatore in Toronto, explains, this distinction is significant because as an independent contractor, the employee was not covered by the Employment Standards Act (ESA), which played a role in how the court interpreted the dispute resolution clause in his contract.
Employers sometimes use dispute resolution clauses to provide additional protections or prevent drawn-out litigation. However, as this case demonstrates, their enforceability depends on how they are written; the contract agreement included a dispute resolution clause, stating that if a dispute arose, both parties would meet to resolve it before proceeding to arbitration under the...
There are a slew of legal challenges to Trump’s war on immigrants: there are people illegally sent to Nayib Bukele’s concentration camp, most notably Kilmar Abrego Garcia (whom Chris Van Hollen man...