Edmonton Employment Law

Recently, we surveyed some of the problems in the analysis of employee condonation of employer breaches of contract . Next, let's talk about mitigation - about the expectation that constructively dismissed employees will stay in their jobs, because the 'reasonable person' wouldn't just dump a perfectly good job without a fallback plan. Let's start with mitigation generally . The concept isn't unique to employment law, but is an extension of the general law of damages: Innocent parties are entitled to damages to put them into the position they would have occupied but for the breach, but  they cannot recover for avoidable or avoided losses. If you agree to buy 100,000 widgets from me at $10 each, and then you renege...I can't just dump the widgets in the garbage and sue you for a cool million; I have to still try to sell the widgets at the best price I can get for them, and sue you for any shortfall.  So if I can only get $8.50 per widget from others, I sue yo

I have a bunch  of draft constructive dismissal posts on the go, which I'm basically aborting because, the more I think about the subject, the more my thinking evolves. Constructive dismissal law is in need of a reinvention, especially in the wake of COVID-19. So let's start a conversation about this. Consider this the first installment of a series on Redefining Constructive Dismissal. Back To Basics A constructive dismissal occurs where an employee makes a unilateral and fundamental change to the terms and conditions of the employment contract. In practice, there are basically three or four kinds of constructive dismissal, though there's overlap between them: Significant reduction in compensation. Significant modification to the working conditions, duties, or expectations. Temporary layoff/unpaid suspensions. Permitting a toxic work environment to be created. The last category, while factually complex, is legally less convoluted than other areas. A lot of the weird and arc