After nearly two decades sharing listings, one agent's claim hit an unexpected legal wall
For 17 years, a real estate salesperson believed she was working for the colleague sitting beside her. When that arrangement ended, she sued for wrongful dismissal. A judge has now ruled she was never an employee at all, and that the law would not have allowed it.
Released June 9, 2026, the decision of Justice Papageorgiou of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted summary judgment and dismissed the claim. The worker, a salesperson with a Re/Max brokerage, had argued that after nearly two decades of shared listings she was the employee of another agent at the same brokerage, and was owed reasonable notice when the relationship ended in 2023.
The worker said she had worked for the other agent for 17 years before the arrangement ended, and she treated its end as a termination. The other agent maintained that the two were simply independent contractors who worked together at the same brokerage and split commissions on listings they handled jointly.
The two disagreed about why the relationship ended. The other agent said she stopped working with the worker over what she described as harassment about vaccination during the pandemic, which the worker denied. Justice Papageorgiou found she did not need to resolve that dispute, since it mattered only if the worker had a legal basis to claim notice at all.
In a 2008 email, the worker had called the...
A UK woman who claimed that hip pain left her unable to walk, drive or work has been ordered to pay more than 6,000 after admitting to fraudulently claiming Statutory Sick Pay while working for ot...