Author: Hicks Morley

Ontario Superior Court Confirms Presumptive Requirement for Statement of Defence Prior to Certification Motion

· 3 min read

In Richard v. The Attorney General of Canada, the Ontario Superior Court recently confirmed that a defendant in an Ontario class proceeding is required to file a Statement of Defence pre-certification and in accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure, absent special circumstances justifying a deferral. The proposed class proceeding in this case centered on…

Plaintiffs’ Motion to Discontinue Proposed Overtime Class Action Granted

· 1 min read

This post relates to an important procedural aspect of the class proceedings regime. In Somani v. International Financial Group Ltd., the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted the plaintiffs’ motion to discontinue a proposed class action related to allegedly unpaid overtime, vacation, public holiday and premium pay. After commencing the claim, issues arose with the…

Appellate Court Finds Database Defendants not Liable for Tort of Intrusion upon Seclusion where Personal Information “Hacked” by Third Parties

· 4 min read

In a trio of cases, the Ontario Court of Appeal recently held that a claim for the tort of intrusion upon seclusion does not apply to companies who store personal information for commercial use (the “Database Defendants”) when those databases are hacked by third parties. Background In June 2022, the Court of Appeal heard three…

Ontario Repeals Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022

· 1 min read

On November 14, 2022, the Ontario government tabled and passed Bill 35, Keeping Students in Class Repeal Act, 2022, which repeals Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022 and deems it never to have been in force. Bill 35 states that the collective agreements that were deemed to be in operation under subsection 5(1)…

Employers Take Note: Incoming Changes to Competition Act

· 1 min read

Employers should take note of recent amendments made to the Competition Act (Act) by Bill C-19, Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1 which will come into force on June 23, 2023. The amendments make it a criminal offence for an employer to conspire, agree or arrange with an unaffiliated employer to fix, maintain, decrease or…

Proposed Regulation Requiring Federally Regulated Employers to Provide Menstrual Products Published for Comment

· 2 min read

On October 15, 2022, the federal government published a proposed Regulation Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (Menstrual Products). The proposed Regulation would amend the sanitation provisions in the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (OHS Regulations) made under Part II (Occupational Health and Safety) of the Canada Labour Code. The proposed Regulation…

COVID-19 and WSIB Claim Costs

· 3 min read

Public Health Ontario publishes weekly epidemiological summaries regarding COVID-19 in Ontario. The most recent report, published October 7, 2022, noted a gradual increase in case trends and percent positivity over the past three weeks. Current projections suggest that weekly case numbers may continue to rise over the coming weeks.  Given forecasted increases, here is a…

Federal Government Publishes Proposed Canada Labour Code Regulations Regarding Reimbursement of Work-Related Expenses, and More

· 5 min read

On October 1, 2022, the federal government published two proposed Regulations Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (Regulations) amending the Canada Labour Standards Regulations. The Regulations pertain to the reimbursement of work-related expenses and employee information and the service of documents and regular rate of wages. The proposed Regulations have been published…

Court Finds that Placing Employee on Unpaid Leave for Failure to Comply with Vaccination Policy was not Constructive Dismissal

· 3 min read

In Parmar v Tribe Management Inc., the British Columbia Supreme Court recently found that an employee was not constructively dismissed when she was placed on an unpaid leave of absence for refusing to comply with her employer’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy (Policy). The Court held that the employer’s decision to place the employee on the…