Wrongful Dismissal and Summary Judgment in Alberta
One of the evolving areas of law in wrongful dismissal is the availability of summary judgment. Up until the Supreme Court of Canada's 2014 decision in Hryniak , the test for summary judgment was very high: Any material factual issue genuinely in dispute could block summary judgment, requiring the parties to go to a full trial instead. In Hryniak , the Supreme Court found that a "culture shift" was necessary, requiring judges "to actively manage the legal process in line with the principle of proportionality." The impact of Hryniak is complicated. The case itself dealt with the interpretation of new summary judgment rules in Ontario, where 2010 amendments to the Rules of Civil Procedure granted the courts significant discretion to determine questions of fact (or to craft an expeditious process for the determination of those questions) on a motion for summary judgment. Once Hryniak cemented the interpretation of those rules, the impact on wrongful d