Upcoming Webinar: May 7, 2024 @ 12:00 P.M. (ET)  |  Cultural Initiatives in Policing: Part 2 – Calgary Police Service  |  Register Today!

Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

#1 Termination pay, termination notice, termination with or without cause and pay in lieu of notice (Part 3)

Third and final installment on this first point. To recap, in Part 1 of this series, we discussed whether an employer has cause to terminate employment without notice. Assuming the employer did not have cause to terminate employment we discussed termination provisions in employment contracts in Part 2 of the series. This third post will

Read More

The problem with knee-jerk reactions: A call for consideration before termination

Scientifically known as the patellar reflex, a “knee-jerk reflex” is described by Encyclopaedia Britannica as the “sudden kicking movement of the lower leg in response to a sharp tap on the patellar tendon, which lies just below the kneecap.”  In common language, we refer to knee jerk reactions as “reacting quickly and without thought.” I

Read More

#1 Termination pay, termination notice, termination with or without cause and pay in lieu of notice (Part 2)

Second installment. You’ve decided that you do not have cause to terminate so you will be proceeding on a without cause basis. The next question becomes “What are the employee’s entitlements on termination?”. Well, there are really only two possible options, which I’ve attempted to represent pictorially (clearly, I missed my calling as a graphic

Read More

#1 Termination pay, termination notice, termination with or without cause and pay in lieu of notice (Part 1)

There are a lot of overlaid concepts under this rubric so the first thing I’ll do is break those down into their components. Given the number of components in this topic, my response to this first “issue” will be posted over several days, so keep on coming back for updates! Termination with or without cause

Read More

There’s more to a severance package than the number of months

A terminated employee’s primary interest is usually the bottom line figure when negotiating a severance package.  With this goal in mind, the termination notice period is often viewed as the driving factor for how much compensation will be received (i.e. more months = bigger package).  However, this viewpoint may be overly simplistic as other factors

Read More

“Draconian” termination provision found enforceable

With an introductory paragraph that reads like a soap opera, the recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kielb v. National Money Mart Company quickly caught my attention. As summarized by Justice Akhtar, This case involves allegations of broken promises, ambiguous clauses and inequitable treatment and, at its heart, a contract that

Read More

Happy anniversary! An employment lawyer’s perspective on employment anniversaries

On July 8, 2015, I celebrated my 2nd year anniversary of practicing law with my colleagues at Rubin Thomlinson. As a lawyer in my 18th year of practice, I have celebrated many anniversaries, however, this most recent one caused me to pause and think about the importance of anniversaries in the employment law realm. I

Read More

Deaf employee awarded over $100,000 in damages after “horrendous” conduct by employer

A decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last week contains some of the most disturbing termination facts I have seen in some time. Quite simply, it is a case study on how not to treat an employee with a disability – or any employee for that matter – and how not to terminate

Read More