Nikolay Chsherbinin is an employment and immigration lawyer and author of The Law of Inducement in Canadian Employment Law. He can be reached at 416-907-2587 or by visiting nclaw.ca.
Enforceability of a termination clause in a written employment contract continues to be a vexing legal issue. An employment case in point is the Court of Appeal for Ontario decision in Amberber v. IBM Canada Ltd., 2018 ONCA 571, which clarified that subdivision of a termination clause into constituent parts and their subsequent individual interpretation is not permissible.
In MacIvor v. Pitney Bowes, 2018 ONCA 381, the Court of Appeal for Ontario determined that an employee could benefit from his former employer’s long-term disability coverage, even though he did not discover the disability until after he began working for another employer.
A single act of dishonesty may constitute cause for dismissal, even if the specific incident is of minor consequence. It is not so much the dishonest act itself; rather it is the revelation of a character that is untrustworthy that provides the legitimate basis for termination of the employment relationship.
A recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision provides a useful road map for employers and their advisors regarding the deductibility of various incomes that wrongfully dismissed employees could earn during their statutory and reasonable notice periods.
