One of the last wrongful dismissal decisions of 2015, Drysdale v Panasonic Canada Inc., 2015 ONSC 6878 («Drysdale»), provides some useful insights into the judicial trends that will likely continue into 2016 when
deciding wrongful dismissal actions.
That said, the courts often emphasize an employee's length of service when
deciding wrongful dismissal cases.
In
deciding that wrongful dismissal damages were not an appropriate matter for summary judgment, the court's reasoning expressly went beyond the question of the jurisdiction of a Master under the Court of Queen's Bench Act, but rather was based upon «the purpose and nature of summary judgment applications, trials and summary trials» (at paragraph 31).
The use of summary judgment motions to
decide wrongful dismissal where the employee was terminated from his or her employment without cause has become the norm in Ontario.
Not exact matches
John sues for
wrongful dismissal and the court
decides that under the common - law, John's reasonable notice period was one year.
After careful analysis of the claim, Justice Perell
decided not to exclude group 1 because although they could not pursue damages for
wrongful dismissal, they were free to advance claims for the other aspect of the class action suit.
If the purchaser later
decides to terminate some of the employees the purchaser would be responsible for any claims of
wrongful dismissal.
If you
decide not to carry out your employer's latest new idea, and you are fired, can you successfully sue for
wrongful dismissal if you can demonstrate to the Court that your employer's new idea was not going to work?
The adjudicator also
decided the employer fired the unscheduled sibling because of his association with his sister on the basis of creed contrary to the Human Rights Code (and likely also a
wrongful dismissal regardless).
The increasing use of summary judgment motions to
decide straightforward
wrongful dismissal actions has resulted in it now being commonplace for a court to grant judgment in a
wrongful dismissal action before the expiration of the dismissed employee's reasonable notice period.