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 offers and they do not want the parties to worry about looking “weak” to a trial judge if their offer can be seen by that trial judge before or during trial.
However, there is a growing exception to this line of reasoning, and that is where the plaintiff ex employee is claiming punitive damages and adequately sets out alleged facts in his or her claim that could substantiate same, and where the offer was essentially a “bully offer.”
The ex employee should realize that the employer will probably bring a motion to court to try to strike this type of pleading and that motions regarding such issues can easily run into the thousands of dollars of legal fees. They also take months to complete and the lawsuit is essentially stalled while that motion plays out.
The losing side in such a motion battle is usually ordered to repay most of the winning party’s legal fees incurred in the battle.
This is one of the many interesting procedural things than can occur in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit.