Contractual acceptance by Emoji
The courts have moved into the modern age! There was a recent case out of Sask involving a purchase of flax seeds by a business. There was a quote by the vendor and someone from the prospective purchaser sent back…
Sexual harassment is bad for all concerned
I would like to comment on the sad (in my view) Cho v Cafe La Foret decision from the BC Supreme Court. Cho was the head baker at the cafe. He did not have even a brief written contract with…
Pleading employer termination meeting offers
Normally, an ex employee or his or her lawyer is not allowed to put in a Statement of Claim, anything about an offer to settle made by the defendant employer. The reason is that the courts want parties to exchange…
CERB as mitigation income
Justice Perell just released an interesting/sad wrongful dismissal case that considered several issues, including the one listed above. In the case of Sonia Gracias v Dr. David Walt Dentistry the court followed several other Ontario cases and found that CERB…
Constructive dismissal and Covid
Now that the Ontario Court of Appeal decided the one outlier Taylor case on procedural, versus substantive, grounds, we are left with a landscape whether there are three or four decisions saying " a lay off remains a constructive dismissal…
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
It is rare in criminal law to see a 9-0 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada. That court issued such a criminal ruling recently regarding parole eligibility criteria for multiple murder convicts. The essentially ruled against "stacking" so that…
The Supreme Court weighs in on criminal law and the “I was really/drunk/high” defence
There are certain types of criminal offences that require "specific intent" to commit them rather than "general intent." Figuring out which is which has taken decades of jurisprudence. Regarding "specific intent" crimes there had been a defence of automatism for…
An expensive derriere slap- there is “intent” and then there is “premeditated intent.”
ThyssenKrupp is a famous elevator company. It had an office with 10 males and 3 females and it was a fun, joke filled place to work. Mr. Render was a supervisor with the company. He had been there 30 years…
Canadian Armed Forces Reserves and Ontario’s Employment Standards Act
In some refreshing news, the Ontario government has announced changes to the Employment Standards Act to ensure that folks who join the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves and have to leave their civilian jobs for weeks on end for military exercises,…
Accommodation is a a two way street
I was pleased to be defence (employer) counsel in the recent Superior Court trial decision of Pepper v Lamb. Mr. Lamb owned a small proprietorship that sold promotional products. Ms. Pepper was his longstanding, only employee, and realistically, she ran…