Publication Name: Case In Point

Termination of Employee Following Work Refusal Results in Finding of Reprisal

· 2 min read

The Ontario Labour Relations Board has found an employer violated the Occupational Health and Safety Act (“OHSA”) when it immediately terminated an employee instead of taking any steps whatsoever to investigate a work refusal. The employee was a probationary truck driver who had worked with the employer for three months. He felt that the truck…

Supreme Court of Canada Denies Leave to Appeal in Carrigan

· 1 min read

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to appeal from the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Carrigan v. Carrigan.  The Court of Appeal’s decision awarded the payment of the pre-retirement death benefit payable under an Ontario registered pension plan to a member’s designated beneficiaries rather than to his common law spouse (Ms Quinn),…

HRTO Renders Significant Remedies Decision

· 2 min read

In the recent decision of Fair v. Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, a non-union employee was reinstated to employment with back pay, despite having been away from the workplace for nearly a decade. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario explicitly rejected the employer’s argument that it would be unfair to order reinstatement in light of the…

Divisional Court Confirms that Section 80(3) of the PBA Deems Employment to Continue Following Sale of Business

· 3 min read

In Ontario Pension Board v. Ratansi, the Ontario Divisional Court confirmed that the Pension Benefits Act (“PBA”) deems that following a sale of business transaction, both employment and pension plan membership continue under the predecessor employer’s pension plan while the employee continues in employment with the successor employer. The decision overturns an earlier decision of…

Employer’s Use of Video Surveillance in Fire Station Reasonable When Addressing a Serious Safety Concern

· 4 min read

Arbitrator Sheehan has affirmed that an employer may install and operate video surveillance in a workplace where it has legitimate and serious concerns about safety issues. In this arbitration, a firefighters’ Association grieved the installation of cameras at two fire stations. It argued, among other things, that the requirement that the employees be subject to…

Sale of Assets and Hiring of Former Employees of Defunct Business not Sale of Business within LRA: OLRB

· 3 min read

In a recent case, the Ontario Labour Relations Board (“OLRB”)  helped clarify what situations will trigger the operation of the sale of business provisions of the Labour Relations Act (“Act”) particularly when a business purchases the assets and premises of an organization which is unionized. This case may provide guidance for an organization which is…

University’s Removal of Controversial Posters Not Discriminatory under Human Rights Code

· 3 min read

In its recent decision SAIA v. Carleton University, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (“Tribunal”) found that the decision by Carleton University to remove certain posters from its campus was not discriminatory, nor was it driven by discriminatory animus against Palestinian students. The University had a policy that posters must be approved by the appropriate…

Alberta Court of Appeal Considers Restrictive Covenants and Fiduciary Duties

· 4 min read

In Evans v. The Sports Corporation, the Alberta Court of Appeal provides some important guidance on what classes of employees will be considered fiduciaries and what type of conduct will constitute solicitation of clients. Richard Evans was employed for six years by The Sports Corporation (“TSC”) as a sports agent responsible for TSC prospects and…

Arbitrator Considers Employer’s Ability to Collectively Bargain Changes to Retiree Benefits

· 3 min read

In TRW Canada Ltd. and Thompson Products Employees’ Assn. (Retiree Benefits) (Re), collectively bargained changes to vested retiree benefits were found to have been made without lawful authority. The changes had been proposed by the employees’ association (“Association”), following a particularly hard round of collective bargaining, and after the employer threatened to close one of…