cases Flashcards
Belton vs. Liberty Insurance
-Comissioned sales reps selling insurance
-originally were independent contrators and their agreements allowed the company to change comission schedules with a 90 days notice
-agents refused to sign a new agreement, and were terminated, leading to a lawsuit of wrongful dissmissal.
What it means:
Sales reps are deemed employees, not independent contractors per their contracts.
Courts focus on exclusive or near-exclusive performance for the company.
It empowers employees to test new employment terms due to the employer’s unilateral decision.
Lack of a defined “reasonable time” for assessment creates uncertainty for employers.
Meiorin
Requires the employer to establish the following (3 steps)
1) Employer adopted the standard for a purpose that is rationally connected to the performance of the job (objective)
2) Employer adopted the standard in an honest and good-faith belief that it was necessary to the fulfillment of that purpose (subjective)
3) Standard is reasonably necessary the accomplishment of that legitimate purpose, which requires the demonstration that it is impossible to accommodate the employee without imposing undue hardship on the employer (objective)
Wallace
- Wallace damages: used in wrongful dismissal decisions in Canada to describe damages ordered against the employer acting in bad faith in the way it terminated an employment contract.
- Established damage for mental suffering or hurt feelings could be awarded to a dismissed employee if employer engages in “bad faith dismissal.”
- When damages where awarded they tended to be in the range of additional 1 to 4 months added to the period of reasonable notice.
- This was altered a decade afterwards in the Honda case
Honda
The employee must present some evidence that establishes that they suffered physical or psychological harm caused by the employer incentive behavior rather that the fact of being dismissed. (often difficult to establish)
The court will not simply extend the notice period by a month or two but instead compensate the employee for the actual harm suffered.
More difficult for an employee to obtain aggravated damages for bath-faith discharge
Came after the Wallace
Canadian Pacific Railway Co. V. Lockart
A employer (master) is responsible not just for what he authoress his employee (servant) to do but also for the way in which he does it
If the unauthorised and wrongful act of the employee (servant) is not so connected with the authorised act as to be a mode of doing it but is an independent act the employer (master) is not responsible
Renaud
Emphasizes that accommodation is a collective responsibility.
Employers are obligated to explore flexible options, modify jobs, schedules, and provide necessary tools, with accommodation subject to undue hardship. Employers are also responsible for proactively educating the workplace on accommodation needs.
Employees are expected to reasonably participate in their own accommodation, provide necessary information, and accept reasonable accommodations, not necessarily their preferred ones.
Unions are to collaborate with workers and employers in seeking accommodation measures, even if it requires exceptions to collective agreement provisions, as long as it doesn’t cause undue hardship.
Hadley v. Baxendale
Created the reasonable contemplation test (provides that damages for breach of contract are available only for humans that the parties would reasonably have contemplated at the time the contract was formed)
Consider what harm the employee would suffer if dismissed without notice. (first case that was established with compensatory damages)
Entrop v. Imperial Oil Ltd
Human rights legislation prevents workplace discrimination based on prohibited information, safeguarding individual privacy. Employers can request necessary medical information for accommodation but face restrictions on mandatory drug and alcohol testing to protect employee privacy
Belton and Ontario Ltd. V. Sagaz Industries Canada Inc
Vicarious liability
Judge applied the “organization test”, which asked whether the work in question is “an integral part of the business” of the purported employer or only peripheral to that business, and whether the worker had been integrated into the business such through regular scheduling and required adherence to company rules and procedures
Mustopha v. Culligan
Have to establish that it was reasonably foreseeable that a person of ordinary fortitude would have suffered a personal injury.
Used the law of tort which imposes an obligation to compensate for any harm done on the basis of reasonable foresight, not insurance.
Non-intentional tort (negligence), B suffered damages that were caused by. A’s behavior
Moorcock
Relied on the “pre-assumed intention of the parties” as the basis for implying the contract term. Origins of the implied contract term (terms that are read into the contract by judges to fill voids in expressed contract terms)
The idea that implying the term, the judge is simply given expression of the agreement the parties themselves intended all along.
Court referred to the business efficacy test (an approach used by common law judges to justify the implication of a contract term on the basis that the term is necessary to make the contract effective)
Bardal
The “Bardal Factors” used by judges to consider in calculating reasonable notice, they are intended to act as a proxy for assessing how long it might reasonably take the employee to find a new comparable job.
Takes in account length of service, age of employee, character of employment (non-managerial employees), availability of other employment
Requires judges to survey the situation at the time of the termination and to calculate a reasonable period of notice based on what they see and think is fair and reasonable in the circumstance
Rejdak v. Fight Network Inc
Gave 3 important lessons about common law rules of contract
1)amendments to an employment contract are only enforceable if there has been mutual consideration
2) a verbal offer by an employer to employ a job applicant can create an enforceable employment contract if the worker accepts the offer (a written contract is not necessary, and many employees in Canda have never signed a written contract)
3) if an employee commences work before having signed a written employment contract, than a written contract introduced afterwards constitutes a proposed modification to the original verbal contract, unless the parties had agreed overwise. ( verbal contract’s implied requirements that employer provides “reasonable notice”)
Two step model for analyzing human rights case at work
1) Does a rule, standard, or practice discriminate against the complaint on the basis of a prohibited ground in the human rights statue (if no human rights legislation does not apply)
2) Is that discrimination nevertheless permitted by a statutory defense or an exemption in the human rights statute like BFOR and special interest organization defense, etc. (if no discrimination is a violation of the human rights statue)
If yes, the discrimination is not a violation of the human rights
