just cause for dismissal
October 15, 2018 Vey Willetts LLP Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Human Rights, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll
Determining what conduct amounts to just cause for dismissal is no easy task. In part this is due to just cause being inherently situation specific. When describing what may constitute just cause, employment lawyers often refer to extreme examples: think of situations where a public-facing employee makes repeated racial slurs to a customer or commits […]
drunk driving, employment law, just cause for dismissal, privacy, safety at work, termination
January 3, 2018 Employer Advisor, McCarthy Tétrault LLP Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Training and Development, Uncategorized
A recent decision from the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench supports that an employee’s use of his work phone to secretly record meetings with management may support an employer’s decision to terminate for just cause.
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October 6, 2017 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Wages and Compensation
In Canada, employers can dismiss employees in one of two ways: with cause or without cause. If an employer dismisses an employee without cause, and then later discovers that they had been stealing from the company for years, can they now allege just cause for dismissal?
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November 4, 2016 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Source Deductions and Reporting, Union Relations, Wages and Compensation
It appears that the saga of judicial interpretation and consideration of termination clauses will continue, with predictably unpredictable results. Courts will enforce termination clauses that limit an individual’s entitlement to notice of dismissal, but the onus will be on the employer to show that the clause should be enforced.
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August 3, 2016 De Bousquet PC Barristers and Solicitors Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Union Relations
The impact of this decision will likely be very substantial for a number of reasons. By requiring federally-regulated employers to always provide just cause when terminating non-unionized employees, the Court significantly expanded on the common law and statutory protections available to a large part of the working population. As a consequence of this decision, employees of federally-regulated employers will now be awarded a significantly higher degree of employment protection than their colleagues in the private sector, whose rights are largely governed by less protective provincial laws.
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July 8, 2016 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Wages and Compensation
It is not uncommon for an organization to move their offices, or to “transfer” an employee from one location to another. Sometimes, the move is across the street, while other moves are across the country or farther. What happens if an employee refuses to relocate?
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March 4, 2016 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Human Rights, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Wages and Compensation
What is an employer to do when it discovers that one of their employees has been arrested? In many cases, the employer’s knee-jerk reaction will be to dismiss the employee, particularly where the charges relate to more unsavoury conduct. However, the law is clear that like most off-duty conduct, being charged with a criminal offence will not, in and of itself, be just cause for dismissal.
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September 25, 2015 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Human Rights, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Union Relations
As any follower of Canadian employment law already knows, there are many grey areas and very few “black-and-white” rules. One of the greyer areas is summary dismissal; evaluating when an employer has just cause to terminate the employment relationship is fraught with uncertainty. Contrary to popular belief, there are no absolute rules and there are no types of misconduct that will guarantee the existence of just cause for dismissal.
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June 16, 2015 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll
By now, regular readers should understand that summary dismissal in Canada is complex, and assessing whether or not just cause for dismissal exists requires much more than consideration of the alleged misconduct in isolation.
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January 19, 2015 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Union Relations
I am often asked what it takes to prove that summary dismissal is warranted. Can a single incident of misconduct be sufficient? What about a series of less serious incidents?
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November 7, 2014 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Wages and Compensation
In the course of updating my text, You’re Fired! Just Cause for Dismissal in Canada, I review every single court and arbitrator’s decision dealing with just cause for dismissal. Not surprisingly, these can be pretty entertaining. However, the cases also confirm a few truths:
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October 3, 2014 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, HRMS, Human Resources, Human Rights, Union Relations
Investigations have become an integral part of HR and employment law, and an employee’s conduct in the course of an investigation can be the difference between summary dismissal and some lesser form of punishment.
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June 12, 2014 Yosie Saint-Cyr, LL.B. Managing Editor Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Human Rights, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Source Deductions and Reporting, Wages and Compensation
Three popular articles this week on HRinfodesk deal with retiring allowance and vesting of pension benefits; after-acquired cause to justify termination; and workplace drug test.
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May 2, 2014 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Human Rights, Union Relations
As I head to Osgoode Professional Development for module 3 of the course that my partner and I are Directors of, HR Law for HR Professionals, I am contemplating one of the aspects of HR law that has changed significantly in recent years: investigations.
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March 7, 2014 Rudner Law, Employment / HR Law & Mediation Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll
Although I have been known to reassure employers that “just cause is not a lost cause”, it is fair to say that the threshold for establishing that summary dismissal is warranted is a difficult one to meet in most circumstances. One question that often arises is what an employer is to do when they only learned of reasons for dismissal after the dismissal has already taken place. This can occur in situations where an employee was dismissed on a without cause basis, or in situations where the termination was for cause. Either way, the issue is what an employer can do with subsequently obtained information, which is typically referred to as “after-acquired cause”.
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