In Pham v. Qualified Metal Fabricators Ltd., 2023 ONCA 255, the Court of Appeal for Ontario recently issued an important ruling regarding the law of unpaid temporary layoffs.

When the pandemic first began, and at various subsequent points, many Ontario employers experienced a decrease in work volume and, as a result, made the difficult decision to place their staff on temporary unpaid lay-off from work. This seemingly straightforward decision, however, has resulted for some businesses in unintended litigation. They have faced employee claims for severance on the basis that their lay-off amounted to a constructive dismissal from employment.

Social media platforms moderate user-posted content to protect us from offensive, disturbing and sometimes criminal content. This process, however, is not always automatic. It often relies upon the efforts of individual workers to act as gatekeepers, keeping undesirable content at bay.

Q&A is a recurring series on the Vey Willetts LLP blog. The aim is to provide quick answers to questions we commonly encounter in our day-to-day practice of employment law. In this edition, we focus on temporary lay-offs from work.

Employees are entitled to work in a respectful environment, free from harassment and discrimination. In circumstances where the work environment deteriorates to such an extent that it may be considered “poisonous” or “toxic”, a court will likely find that the employer’s behaviour in creating and/or condoning this environment amounted to a constructive dismissal of the affected employee.

Q&A is a recurring series on the Vey Willetts LLP blog. The aim is to provide quick answers to questions we commonly encounter in our day-to-day practice of employment law. In this edition, we focus on constructive dismissal from employment.

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Brake v RJ-M2R Restaurant Inc. This is an important decision for employees and employers alike as it may potentially change the way in which Ontario courts assess a wrongfully dismissed employee’s mitigation efforts and their consequent entitlement to additional severance. Mitigation refers to the obligation of dismissed employees to look for alternate comparable employment. Feldman J.A.’s concurring reasons, in particular, suggest that where a dismissed employee accepts an inferior job, any earnings therein may not count as ‘mitigation income’.