Court of Appeal hears appeals on termination provisions – again
You may have noticed a few Wednesdays ago that your employment lawyer was more difficult to reach than normal. If they weren’t in a hearing or a discovery, they were probably watching the livestream of the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s hearing in Baker v Van Dolder’s Home Team and Li v Wayfair Canada, arguably the two biggest employment law cases since the court’s decision in Waksdale v Swegon North America.
Both Baker and Li address what language would make a termination provision unenforceable. Depending on the outcome of either case, a number of termination provisions may not limit the employer’s obligations to an employee on dismissal.
The significance of these cases, and the high anticipation for the court's decisions, can be traced back to Bardal v the Globe and Mail and the decisions that followed it.
Bardal, a 1960 decision of the High Court of Ontario, established that an employer must provide reasonable notice of termination and that the length of this notice is based on an assessment of factors including the employee's age, length of service, and character of employment.
After Bardal, employers realized that an employee's entitlement to reasonable notice could be limited by including a term in the employment agreement limiting these on dismissal.
In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada in Machtinger v HOJ Industries confirmed that an employer could not...
Singer and actor Kim Min-jong refuted allegations of involvement in illegal gambling, calling them “clear falsehoods.” Kim stated through his legal representatives, OhKims Law, on the 19th, “We cl...