Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union v. Yellow Pages Group Company, 2012 ONCA 448

Zelsman v. Meridian Credit Union Limited, 2012 ONCA 358

Ken Thornicroft is a well known labour and employment law academic and adjudicator in BC.

He is currently a professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business and a member of the BC Employment Standards Tribunal.

Recently he has been studying the issue of gender bias in negotiated  and wrongful dismissal severance awards, and presented a paper that touched on this topic at the CLEBC Employment Law Conference in 2011. That paper can be found here: "Appellate Review of "Reasonable Notice" Awards in Canada: 2000-2010".

On June 4, 2012, UVIC issued this news release concerning his research:

Gender Bias In Severance Settlements  read more »

The Supreme Court of Canada announced on May 17, 2012 that the application for leave to appeal in Hart v. Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Kingston was dismissed without costs, meaning the top court won't hear the case.

In a decision issued on November 22, 2011 -Hart v. Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Kingston, in Canada, 2011 ONCA 728 - the Ontario Court of Appeal ("ONCA") had ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction over the priest's constructive dismissal claim, upholding the decision of the Ontario Superior Court.

Specifically, the ONCA stated:  read more »

In a decision issued on January 18, 2012 - Jones v. Tsige, 2012 ONCA 32 - the Ontario Court of Appeal recognized the tort of invasion of personal privacy in case involving two BMO employees.

The court then awarded $10,000 in damages to the employee whose privacy has been breached.

For more background on this case, see my May 9, 2011 post here: "Ontario Court of Appeal to consider tort of invasion of privacy in work context case".

The Law Times ran a story ("Appeal court to consider privacy tort") today on the decision in Jones v. Tsige, 2011 ONSC 1475.

It is a case concerning two employees of the Bank of Montreal who worked at different branches. Over the course of four years, one employee (the "Defendant") accessed the personal banking information of the other employee, who was also a customer of the bank (the "Plaintiff"), on 176 occasions. 

Rather than filing a complaint with the federal privacy commissioner under PIPEDA, and ultimately going to the federal court for recourse, the Plaintiff sued the Defendant for the common law tort of invasion of privacy.

In its decision issued on March 23, 2011, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, citing precedent, ruled that there is no tort of invasion of privacy in Ontario.

The Ontario Court of Appeal will now have an opportunity to weigh in on this issue.  read more »

In Mason v. Chem-Trend Limited Partnership, 2011 ONCA 344, the Ontario Court of appeal overturned the application judge's decision and ruled that the following restrictive covenant was unreasonable and therefore unenforceable against a 17 year technical salesperson whose employment was terminated for just cause:

I agree that if my employment is terminated for any reason by me or by the Company, I will not, for a period of one year following the termination, directly or indirectly, for my own account or as an employee or agent of any business entity, engage in any business or activity in competition with the Company by providing services or products to, or soliciting business from, any business entity which was a customer of the Company during the period in which I was an employee of the Company, or take any action that will cause the termination of the business relationship between the Company and any customer, or solicit for employment any person employed by the Company.

In Indalex Limited (Re), 2011 ONCA 265, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that, in the context of Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) proceedings, pension plan deficiency claims can, in certain circumstances, have priority over secured creditors.

• You can read Koskie Minsky's summary here.
  
• You can read FMC's summary here.
• You can read McCarthy Tetrault's summary here.
  

In R. v Cole, 2011 ONCA 218, a criminal law case, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that a high school teacher had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of a work laptop computer on which he was entitled to store personal information.

In making this finding, the court pointed in part to the fact that the employer had no clear privacy policy relating to teachers' work laptops, and no policy statement  reserving the right to monitor or search the teachers' laptops.

However, the appeal court further ruled in its March 22, 2011 decision that:  read more »

Lancaster House is continuing its "Top 10" theme for audioconferences. This time its an audioconference on March 3, 2011 addressing The Top 10 Human Rights Cases. The cases and the issues they address (quoted from Lancaster) are:  read more »