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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Insights

Reflections and news direct from Rubin Thomlinson.
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Ontario jury awards former Walmart employee $1.46 million for constructive dismissal

Setting a new “high-water mark” for damages in constructive dismissal cases in Ontario, a jury in Windsor, Ontario has awarded a former Walmart employee $1.46 million in damages, after finding that she was constructively dismissed. In delivering its verdict on October 10, 2012, the jury concluded that the employee had suffered abusive treatment, including mental

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Employee information and social media part two: What about mitigation efforts?

In the last month, two personal injury cases have crossed my desk that have left me wondering how aggressively employers and their lawyers will or should incorporate social media searches to examine a terminated employee’s mitigation efforts.Perhaps this is already happening. In both cases, the social media profiles of plaintiffs who claimed they were injured

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Workplace violence and harassment compliance: A tragic reminder

On September 15, 2012, a Toronto gas station attendant was killed after reportedly being dragged and run down by the vehicle of a customer who was attempting to leave the station without paying for fuel. This incident is a tragic example of the type of workplace violence that motivated the Bill 168 amendments to the

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Employee information and social media: What should employers do?

A case that made the papers late last week, is a good example of why employers should not believe everything they see or hear about an employee from social media or that is communicated to them electronically. In taking a closer look at this recent example, we offer suggestions on how employers could handle issues

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Charges following workplace tragedy result in guilty pleas and record fines

In a tragic and well-publicized occupational safety accident that occurred in Toronto on Christmas Eve 2009, four workers of Metron Construction Corporation (“Metron”) were killed and a fifth was seriously injured when the swing-stage they were standing on collapsed 13 stories above the ground.  Investigation into the incident revealed that none of the workers who

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AODA compliance in action

Leading up to the beginning of this year, we assisted many of our employer clients in implementing the customer service standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (“AODA”).  Since we are also an employer, we are similarly bound by the AODA and have taken our own steps to comply.  We had an experience

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Textual harassment – The new frontier?

We are all familiar with sexual harassment as a subject matter for workplace investigations.  In a post Bill 168 world, psychological harassment investigations are also becoming common.   However, with an increasingly wired workforce dependent on electronic communication, we are in a new era in which employees are becoming victim to “textual harassment”.  In our firm,

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AODA: What you need to know about accessibility standards

Recent calls from clients seeking AODA “certification” suggest that there may be some confusion out there as to what organizations are required to do in order to comply with the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service. I expect people are calling now because the December 31, 2012 deadline to file an accessibility report with the government

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