Past Cases: Wrongful Dismissal and Severance Law

Recent Cases

• Wrongful Termination of Electrician

  In June 2012 I argued a case before a Jury in Prince George involving the termination of a head electrician at the Babine Sawmill in Burns Lake, British Columbia. The plaintiff, Larry Higginson, had been employed by the mill for over 30 years. The defendants, which included the American parent corporation, alleged just cause for termination. Mr. Higginson took the position that the cause allegation had been concocted following a series of events which were designed to force him to resign without severance. After a three week trial, the jury found for Mr. Higginson and awarded him damages of over $800,000 including $573,000 in punitive damages. This was, at the time, the highest punitive damage award arising from an employment law case in Canadian history. In October, 2012 it was eclipsed by a punitive damage award in Ontario against Walmart (which case is currently under appeal). To date, the Higginson case remains the highest employment law punitive damage award in British Columbia. Because this was a jury trial, there were no written reasons. Attached is an article about the case which appeared in The Lawyer's Weekly magazine. Find out more …

• Severance Case with Trial

  In this case I acted for a 47 year old equipment manager with 23 years of service. In evidence in the case was the fact that the defendant had provided the plaintiff with 3 months' working notice and had then offered the plaintiff a severance payment of an additional 12 months' pay. The plaintiff had been prepared to settle for a severance payment equivalent to and additional 15 months' pay. At trial, the judge found that the reasonable notice period should have been 20 months and that the plaintiff was entitled to damages based on a further 17 months after deducting the 3 months of working notice. The defendant could have settled this case for much less than it ended up costing. Sometimes litigation is required to achieve a reasonable outcome.
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• Employment Case Won on Appeal

  In this case I acted for a 39 year old sales manager that worked for a large payment processing company for over 6 years. His employment was terminated when a business alliance between his employer and a Canadian bank terminated. The defendant offered him to continue in his role with a significantly limited suite of products to offer potential customers. The defendant refused to pay him any severance. The case first went to trial where the trial judge held that the plaintiff was justified in turning down the job offer from his employer but held that he should have accepted a job offer from the bank that had been part of the business alliance. The trial judge awarded the plaintiff limited damages and ordered that the plaintiff pay a portion of the defendant's costs. We appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge had erred in her assessment of the competing job offer as well as her ruling on costs. The matter then went back to the trial judge where the plaintiff was awarded costs as well as an increased damages award. Find out more …

• Unusual Wrongful Dismissal Case

  This is an unusual wrongful dismissal case where I successfully negotiated a settlement for dismissed employee with 20 years service just before a scheduled trial. The settlement was contingent upon the plaintiff swearing an affidavit that he did not have a job nor did he have any job offers or reasonable job prospects as of the date he accepted the offer. The plaintiff made the required sworn statement and then received a unexpected job offer later that very day. The defendant learned of the new employment prior to making the settlement payment and refused to complete the settlement. I then had to go to Court to have the settlement enforced. As there was no evidence the plaintiff had any forewarning of the job offer and the sworn statement was true when he signed it, the settlement was enforced. The defendant was ordered to pay the plaintiff's costs in enforcing the settlement. Find out more …

• Short Service Wrongful Dismissal Case

  In this case I successfully argued at trial that a 35 year old software sales employee who was terminated after only 9 months of employment was entitled to a notice period of 5 months. This was significant for the plaintiff as she had been granted stock options which were to vest after 12 months of employment. The defendant argued that the stock option agreement should be interpreted to prevent the vesting of these options even in the event of a wrongful dismissal. The plaintiff was successful at trial in being awarded a notice period long enough to get her to the 12 month vesting date and also in her position regarding the interpretation of the option agreement. The defendant appealed this decision to the British Columbia Court of Appeal. I was successful at the Court of Appeal in maintaining the trial judgment. This case remains as the leading case in British Columbia on the issue of notice periods for short service employees. Find out more …

• Constructive Dismissal Case

  In this case I acted for a long service manager of an insurance agency. The issue was an employment contract that she negotiated with a previous owner (now deceased) where she agreed to work 30 hours per week. Over time she worked longer hours, always doing what was required to ensure the proper operation of the agency. When the agency was sold six years later, the new owner did not inquire about her weekly hours of work. She continued working for the new owner for approximately 10 years working various hours with no complaints from the new owner. In 2006 the new owner "discovered" she was sometimes scheduling herself to work 4 day weeks rather than 5 day weeks. The new owner then unilaterally reduced her salary by 1/5. The trial judge determined that the plaintiff had never received any consideration for agreeing to work 40 hours per week or 5 days per week and that the original contracted 30 hour week contract was all that was legally required. The employer's conduct in reducing her salary unilaterally was held to constitute a constructive dismissal, and thus the dismissal was wrongful and damages were assessed. The employer was ordered to pay the plaintiff the salary that had been withheld plus wrongful dismissal damages based on a 15 month notice period. Find out more …

• Four High-Tech Employment Cases

  In this series of cases, I acted for four plaintiffs that had been terminated from a local high tech company when the division they worked in was shut down. The plaintiffs ranged in ages from 31 to 41 years old and had tenures of 8 1/2 to 12 years. They were awarded damages based on notice periods from 10 - 12 months. Three of these cases were heard at one time, hoping that the defendant would learn from the precedent and not require a trial for the fourth case. Unfortunately, the defendant put the fourth employee to the cost and inconvenience of a trial when the outcome, predictably, fell right within the range set by the earlier case. This is another example of a situation where a trial was required in order to achieve damages based on a reasonable notice period. Find out more here

• Constructive Dismissal Due to Moving

  In this case I represented an equities trader that had worked for her entire career in Vancouver trading Canadian equities for institutional clients. When her employer decided to relocate the Vancouver office to San Francisco, she decided that she did not want to move and raise her young family in the United States. Her employer closed the Vancouver office and refused to pay her any severance. The Court found that she was not obligated to move to San Francisco to keep her job and awarded wrongful dismissal damages of roughly $625,000. Find out more …

• Trial Case Defending Employer

  In this case I acted for an employer that had attempted to provide an under performing employee with some option to improve her performance including some time off to recharge her batteries during a slow season. The employee elected the leave of absence option and went to Mexico. When she was later offered to return, she refused and took the position that the leave of absence had been forced upon her. She was even offered the opportunity to come back to work after she had commenced a lawsuit against her employer. At trial, the trial judge accepted the employee's legal argument that the employer had no right to even offer her the choice of a leave of absence and that she had thereby been terminated. The employer (my client) took this case to the British Columbia Court of Appeal which overturned the trial judge's decision and ruled that the option of a leave was reasonable in the circumstances and that the plaintiff had freely chosen that option and had to live with her decision not to return. The plaintiff received nothing in this case. I would have advised the plaintiff very strongly against this course of action as the result was no doubt devastating for her. Find out more …

• Trade Secrets and Employment Law

  In this series of cases, I acted as co-counsel for a group of former employee's that were being sued by their former employer. Over the course of three Court applications, we were successful in having most of the claims against our clients struck from the pleadings on the basis that the former employer was making claims regarding trade secrets which the former employer could not even particularize. The Court held that the "[former employer's] claim is coming precariously close to, if not already, an oppressive plan to prevent the [former employees] from earning a livelihood". Find out more here, here and here …

• Case on Quitting a Replacement Job

  In this case I acted for a 42 year old clerk in the securities industry with 13 years of service. The plaintiff found a lower paying job after 2 months of unemployment. He worked in the new job for only one week and then quit because it was too stressful for the low pay he was receiving. The defendant took the position that the plaintiff was only entitled to a notice period of approximately 6 months and that the plaintiff was unreasonable in quitting the replacement job such that the defendant should not be required to compensate the plaintiff for the moneys he could have earned had he stayed with the new job. The Court determined that the reasonable notice period for the plaintiff was 12 months and that he was not to be faulted for quitting the replacement job. Find out more …

• Lawsuit on Banked Vacation Pay

  In this case, I successfully argued on behalf of a long service senior manager that he was entitled to be paid out a substantial amount of banked vacation time contrary to a written policy preventing the banking of holiday time. The evidence in this case, from the former president of the defendant, was that he had personally exempted the plaintiff from this policy because the office could not have operated effectively had the plaintiff taken all of the vacation time he was entitled to. This case remains one of the leading cases in Canada on the issue of banked vacation time. Find out more …

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