Toronto Employment Lawyer

Exceptions to Signed Contracts

Anything goes into employment contracts
-- but not all written contracts are enforced

Daniel A. Lublin, Toronto Metro News
Published Wednesday June 27, 2007

Written employment contracts represent employment law's most ambivalent feature.  Here are the top 5 ways to opt out of a signed deal:

• illegality
• ambiguity
• lack of consideration
• duress or unconscionability
• Changed Substratum

Click to read the entire article, "Employment Contracts Can be Broken".

Daniel A. Lublin is a Toronto Employment Lawyer, specializing in discipline and dismissal.  He can be reached at dan@toronto-employmentlawyer.com 

Permanent Illness can put your Career at Risk.

Frustrating the Employment Contract

Daniel A. Lublin, Metro Toronto News
Published Wednesday June 20, 2007

Employers are entitled to expect their employees to show up for work.  Without a valid reason, employees who don't show up are subject to dismissal without pay.  Temporary illness, however, usually proffers that valid reason.  But what of the employee who's disability renders her unlikely to ever return to her job?  As Terry Ann Wilmot recently learned, illness is not always a shield from dismisal. 

To read the full, published, column, click "Long-Term Illness can Risk Career".

Daniel A. Lublin is a Toronto Employment Lawyer specializing in the law of discipline and dismissal.  He can be reached at dan@toronto-employmentlawyer.com or through his firm's website www.toronto-employmentlawyer.com 

Employees Need to Combat Warning Signs for Dismissal

Daniel A. Lublin
Toronto Metro News, June 13, 2007

With no legal entitlement to continued employment, Canadian employees decry that the law of dismissal favours their employer.  Employer, however, don't have a magic bullet for liberating themselves from unsatisfactory employees; most mistakes are made by the employees themselves.

Read "watch for the warning signs of dismissal" for the top five errors that employees can make in response to discipline at work -- and what they ought to do instead.

Daniel A. Lublin is a Toronto Employment Lawyer specializing in the law of discipline and dismissal.  You can reach him at dan@toronto-employmentlawyer.com or via his website www.toronto-employmentlawyer.com

Judge Sues Over Lost Pants

Judge Now Only Wants $54 Million From Dry Cleaners for Lost Pants.

A judge who was seeking $67 million from a dry cleaners that lost his pants has loosened the belt on his lawsuit. Now, he's asking for only $54 million, according to a May 30 court filing in D.C. Superior Court.

Roy L. Pearson a District of Columbia administrative law judge, first sued Custom Cleaners over a pair of pants that went missing two years ago. He was seeking about $65 million under the D.C. consumer protection act and almost $2 million in common law claims.

He is now focusing his claims on signs in the shop that have since been removed. The suit alleges that Jin Nam Chung, Soo Chung and Ki Chung committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service."

But Chris Manning, the Chungs' attorney, says that can be considered fraud only if the signs misled a "reasonable" person. No reasonable person, he says, would interpret them to be an unconditional promise of satisfaction.

Pearson, who is representing himself, said in an e-mail that the focus of the case, from the start, was based on the "false, misleading and fraudulent advertisements displayed by the Chungs."

Off Duty Conduct Can Affect the Health of Your Career

Daniel A. Lublin, Toronto Metro News
Published June 6, 2007

Employees who believe that their conduct away from the office is immune from discipline are mistaken.  Employers have the technological means and occasionally the inclination to monitor behaviour that occurs away from the job. And where off-duty behaviour poses a problem, don’t be surprised when it follows you back to your desk.

Read the entire article Off Duty Actions Can Affect Your Job

• Criminal behaviour unrelated to the workplace but which nonetheless injures an employers interests can amount to cause for dismissal.
• Off-duty conduct that casts doubt on your honesty or the ability to perform your job can be cause for dismissal.
• When the public’s safety is in issue, your personal business becomes your employer’s problem.
• Where off-duty conduct creates a serious conflict of interest with the work of the organization, employees may successfully be fired for cause.

Despite these examples, proving just cause often remains a daunting task for employers. Both they, and their employees, should gauge the following rules.

1. Proof of misconduct may not be present, but it seldom matters if it is conduct that is, or is likely to be, ruinous to the interests or reputation of the employer.
2. Proving just cause for dismissal is more likely to be successful if there are negative public consequences or unfavourable publicity brought on as a result of off-duty conduct.
3. Off-duty behaviour that renders other employees unwilling to work with the perpetrator can be grounds for immediate dismissal.

Daniel A. Lublin is a Toronto Employment Lawyer specializing in the law of discipline and wrongful dismissal.  He can be reached at dan@toronto-employmentlawyer.com or you can visit him on the web at www.toronto-employmentlawyer.com

Million dollar class-action lawsuit against CIBC for OVERTIME

A CIBC bank teller is taking on one of the biggest financial institutions in Canada as the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that alleges CIBC fails to pay overtime to customer service staff.

The lawsuit, filed today in Ontario Superior Court, alleges CIBC non-management employees are assigned heavy workloads that cannot be completed within standard working hours, and that, at least in the bank teller's, she was told not to claim any of it as overtime.

The claim is seeking $500 million in damages on behalf of all the company's approximately 10,000 customer service staff.

What is the law regarding overtime:

• Banks are federally incorporated companies and are regulated by the Canada Labour Code.
• The Code states that federally incorporated businesses may not require or permit non management employees to work beyond eight hours per day or 40 hours per week without paying overtime.
• In Ontario, non federal companies (pretty much any organization that is not a bank, telecommunication company, airline etc) are regulated by the Ontario Employment Standards Act.
• The Act allows employers and employees to agree, in writing, to work overtime.  In the absence of such an agreement, employers cannot require employees to work more than 48 hours in a week and in any case, must pay employees overtime for work performed, in excess of 44 hours in a week. 

See news coverage of this story in the

National Post

CTV.ca

CBC.ca

The Toronto Star

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