Edmonton Employment Law

A little over a year ago, in Dufault v. Ignace , Justice Pierce of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice accepted an argument that a termination clause entitling the employer to dismiss on a not-for-cause basis "at any time" was in conflict with employment standards legislation, thus voiding the entire termination clause. The Court of Appeal dismissed the employer's appeal , finding that the Waksdale  problem in the contract was fatal, and declined to address the merits of the "at any time" issue. Subsequently, in Baker v. Van Dolder's , Justice Sproat - found that he was bound to follow Justice Pierce's decision (as well as the Perretta  approach I recently commented on ). It's an interesting case because, while Justice Sproat is himself a well-regarded employment law jurist, he didn't engage much with the underlying principles, instead looking to the doctrine of stare decisis  ("it stands decided") as recently expanded upon by the SCC...

There's a highly dubious line of case law coming out of Ontario dealing with termination language in employment contracts. Ontario lawyers who read that line will initially wonder "which one?" There are a lot of evolving doctrines in Ontario right now that make it difficult to enforce termination language. The reality is that I agree with most of those, on their principles. But not this one: Courts are finding, increasingly, that employers who do not comply with their termination obligations under written contracts of employment are not able to later rely on the termination clause. I understand the motivation to take this approach, but it's completely irreconcilable with first principles of employment law. Background A brief primer: By default, every employment contract is presumed to contain an implied term that neither side will terminate it without 'reasonable notice' to the other. This concept is most often applied when employees are dismissed without caus...