In Southwest Design & Construction Ltd v Janssens, the Alberta Court of King’s Bench awarded 45% of solicitor-client costs to the successful respondents who defended against an interim injunction aimed at restricting client s...

A recent Ontario Superior Court case highlights the balance between employee privacy and an employer’s duty to investigate workplace harassment. The case involved WhatsApp messages containing derogatory remarks about a female emp...

A recent Alberta Human Rights Tribunal case emphasizes the risks and benefits of handling employment disputes across multiple legal forums. The Tribunal applied issue estoppel, preventing the employer from re-litigating a termination i...

Alberta's streamlined trial rules aimed to simplify legal processes, but their applicability to wrongful dismissal cases has been limited over the past year. Key decisions—such as Arsenault, Hou, and Bailey—show th...

Employers who actively recruit individuals from secure employment may face exposure to an award for a significantly longer period of common law notice if the employment relationship does not work out. Courts often consider inducem...

Directors and officers of Alberta corporations may need to pay for their own legal defense if sued or investigated unless they have an agreement with the company for advancement of legal fees. While indemnity is possible after proceedi...

Two recent Alberta Court rulings highlight the importance of compliance with workplace drug and alcohol policies, especially in safety-sensitive roles. The courts upheld the enforcement of these policies, even when employees disputed t...

The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled against an employer who added restrictive employment terms after an employee had accepted a job offer, finding the new terms unenforceable due to a lack of fresh consideration. The decision high...

The Alberta Court of King’s Bench recently ordered the disclosure of various records concerning the employer’s decision to terminate the employee’s employment for cause. The employer claimed that the records fell with...

While the U.S. and Ontario have recently banned the use of non-competition covenants (Non-Competes) in most employment contracts, Alberta still relies on common law to enforce them. Courts in Alberta are cautious, requiring employers t...

The Ontario Superior Court ruled in favour of a dismissed employee and found the employer breached their duty of good faith and fair dealing based on a surreptitious recording of the termination meeting. Employers should always ac...

The Ontario Supreme Court recently ruled that employers do not have the right to terminate employees "at any time". The Court held that the termination clause was unenforceable because it could violate statutory protected lea...

The Alberta Human Rights Commission and labour arbitrators hold concurrent jurisdiction over human rights issues in unionized workplaces, as highlighted by a recent decision from the Chief of the Alberta Human Rights. However, the Comm...

With the holiday season upon us, employers are advised to establish clear workplace policies on alcohol and drug consumption, plan events with safety considerations like drink tickets and alternative transport, and closely monitor even...

After a wait of about a year, Canada’s highest court has finally issued its ruling in a case that had OHS afficionados—and what reader of Field Law’s OHS communiques is not?— on the edge of their seats.  In what promised to...

Recent changes to the Income Tax Act may affect how employers approach settlement. Under these new amendments, any transaction that meets the updated definition of an “avoidance transaction” must be reported and filed with ...

Signing a release – or requiring an employee to sign one – should never be taken lightly. Nearly 25 years ago, the Alberta courts clarified that while an employee cannot contract out of their human rights protections, an em...

What are the new amendments to the Competition Act, and what can happen if you don't comply?Amendments to the Competition Act prohibit companies from entering into no-poach agreements and wage-fixing agreements with respect to employees. Lee C...

This ruling implies that human rights complaints are more likely to proceed to a hearing when credibility is a significant factor. It is crucial for employers to be prepared for such situations and ensure they gather sufficient evidenc...

Non-solicitation covenants are clauses that prohibit employees from soliciting clients or employees from their former employer after leaving the company. The courts have generally upheld these covenants when they are reasonable in scop...

Is Alberta’s Rural Renewal Immigration Stream the right option for your workforce needs? Alberta’s Rural Renewal Immigration Stream is a lesser-known and used avenue for quickly bringing eligible workers to smaller communities in Alber...

The Court recently determined that employees can claim more than six months of overtime pay in wrongful dismissal actions. Employers should ensure they have enforceable overtime agreements to avoid potentially significant awards for ...

What changes to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Code should you be aware of?Changes to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Code come into effect March 31, 2023. Employers need to be mindful of how these changes affect their or...

The Court found that an employer could not recharacterize a without cause dismissal of one of its employees as termination for cause when the material circumstances were known to the employer before the dismissal.  ...

Changes to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Code come into effect March 31, 2023. Employers need to be mindful of how these changes affect their organization and assess whether practices need to be changed or implemented ...

A statement from the Prime Minister was not enough to "proclaim" the National Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II's passing a holiday under a collective agreement in Ontario. The word "proclaim" used i...

What should you look out for as an employer when creating employment contracts?As an employer, you are responsible for creating employment contracts, so what happens when a dispute arises from the interpretation of an employment agreement? Austin Ward ...

How will the proposed increase of the Provincial Court civil claims limit affect you?While the increased civil claims limit will not be effective until designated by regulation, the proposed increase from $50,000 to $200,000 opens up the Provincial Cou...

The Ontario Court of Appeal has clarified that a terminated employee is obligated to mitigate damages by seeking comparable employment to her previous job, not lesser jobs.  The Court set aside a previous decision to reduce ...

How can you minimize your legal exposure when serving alcohol at work events?It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the holiday season, and you’re probably getting ready to host some fun events to celebrate. However, if you choose to ser...

What does the "right to disconnect" mean, and how does this affect Alberta employers? Alberta employers with workers in Ontario should be aware of these policy requirements and consider how to address these changes if they come to Albert...

A recent decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal offers a good reminder of the care employers need to take when drafting termination provisions. In Bryant, three employees whose employment was terminated on 60 days’ notice argued they had...

The Alberta Court of Appeal confirmed the test for constructive dismissal and reaffirmed that the onus is on the employee to decide whether they accept the new terms of employment within a reasonable timeframe - in this case, ten business days.  ...

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench recently held that the employee was not constructively dismissed when placed on an indefinite unpaid leave for failing to comply with a mandatory mask policy. This decision suggests that when an employee re...

What You Need To Know In the case of Rice v Shell Global Solutions Canada Inc, the majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal emphasized the importance of clearly identifying the term of an employment contract and the parties’ obligations and e...

On March 1, 2022, the Province of Alberta entered stage 2 of the Government’s three-stage process for easing COVID-19 restrictions, which resulted in the lifting of nearly all remaining public health restrictions, including Alberta’s mandat...

What You Need to Know A recent British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) decision awarded $30,000 in damages to a restaurant employee due to the actions of a co-worker who repeatedly and deliberately misgendered them by referring to them using ...

On July 7, 2020, the Government of Alberta introduced Bill 32, Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act, 2020. The intent of Bill 32 was to support economic recovery, restore balance in the workplace, and get Albertans back to work.Whil...

Various questions arise from the competing interests of employees and employers when dealing with mandatory vaccination policies. While there were labour arbitration decisions relating to influenza and other vaccines, until very recently, there were ...

The ability of employers to monitor and control the actions of their employees is limited. However, employers can be vicariously liable for the actions and omissions of their employees. This means that employers will be liable for acts or omissions, ...

In a decision released last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the exclusive jurisdiction of labour arbitrators to consider all matters falling under a Collective Agreement, including human rights claims. In Northern Regional Health Auth...

Jonathan Swift once observed that there is nothing constant in the world but inconsistency. The truth of that statement is nowhere more apparent than in the Canadian law governing family status accommodation, where the legal test applied to a...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, all Canadian provinces and territories declared a state of emergency and implemented strict measures to help curb the spread of the virus. Consequently, many businesses were directly or indirectly forced to lay off employe...

Ontario Arbitrator finds that one instance of racial slurs creates the rebuttable presumption that termination is within the range of reasonable disciplinary responses. The Ontario arbitration case of Levi Strauss & Co. v Workers United C...

In Conway v. Griff Building Supplies Ltd., 2020 CarswellBC 3112, an employee was found to have resigned verbally during a meeting, despite failing to provide a formal resignation letter. The Court considered the matter from the ‘perspec...

The importance of a prompt and meaningful investigation into a workplace complaint was highlighted in Bassanese v German Canadian News Company Limited. An employer was ordered to pay $50,000 in aggravated damages for failure to properly ...

The ever pertinent question of when off-duty conduct will constitute just cause dismissal was recently considered by an arbitration board in Prince Edward Island (Canadian Union of Public Employees v A Nursing Home Inc.). An individual was termina...

The recent arbitration decision in Sasktel v Unifor, Local 2S, 2019 CanLII 57057 (SK LA) arose after a long-time employee was dismissed from her position with SaskTel. While her competence and technical know-how were undoubted, her interpersonal skills...

The recent case of Calgary (City) v Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 37, 2019 ABCA 388 from the Alberta Court of Appeal marks an important decision on sexual misconduct in the workplace.   The City of Calgary (the “City”) ...

In Belanger v Western Ventilation Products Ltd, 2019 ABQB 571, a Master of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench found that an employee who became disabled after his notice of termination was not entitled to wrongful dismissal damages because the em...

With great power comes great responsibility. Certainly this is true of employer-employee relationships, where the power imbalance generally tips in favour of the employer. Employers are responsible for providing training and supervision to employees, c...

In Facey v Bantrel Management Services Co., 2019 AHRC 4 the Alberta Human rights Tribunal made a watershed costs award against a complainant. Tribunal Chair Langlois-Klassen acknowledged in her decision that costs should only be awarded against a compl...

Merrifield v The Attorney General, 2019 ONCA 205, represents the first case in which a Canadian appellate court has considered whether a common law tort of harassment exists. In its decision released last week, the Ontario Court of Appeal declined to r...

Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association v Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, 2018 CanLII 90730After a lengthy period of time off work, a school board failed to accommodate a teacher with their return to work within a suitab...