Author: Shannon Sproule Wrongful dismissal takeaways from Gracias v. Dr. David Walt Dentistry, 2022 ONSC 2967: How to factor the pandemic’s impact into the assessment of mitigation and damages and insight into the significance of a reference letter. Facts The Plaintiff worked for the Defendant, Walt Dentistry on an occasional basis in 2017, and transitioned...Continue Reading

The Facts In Public Health Sudbury & Districts v Ontario Nurses’ Association, Arbitrator Herman upheld an employee’s entitlement to a creed-based exemption under the employer’s mandatory vaccination policy. Sudbury & District Health Unit, operating as Public Health Sudbury & Districts (“PHSD” or the “Employer”) is a public health agency located in Sudbury, Ontario. In response...Continue Reading

McGraw v. Southgate, 2021 ONSC 7000 The question that this case raises and answers is how can rumours, hearsay, gossip and innuendo be utilized in a workplace investigation. The Facts Melanie McGraw (“McGraw”) was a volunteer Fire Captain firefighter with the Dundalk Fire Department (“DND”), a part-time administrative assistant with the DFD as well as...Continue Reading

McGraw v. Southgate, 2021 ONSC 7000 The question that this case raises and answers is how can rumours, hearsay, gossip and innuendo be utilized in a workplace investigation. The Facts Melanie McGraw (“McGraw”) was a volunteer Fire Captain firefighter with the Dundalk Fire Department (“DND”), a part-time administrative assistant with the DFD as well as...Continue Reading

Turnpenney Milne is pleased to announce that Esi Codjoe has joined the firm’s partnership. Esi Codjoe is a pragmatic and solutions focused practitioner. She provides legal advice to employers and employees, in both non-unionized and unionized workplaces. Esi understands the unique human resources challenges faced by workplace parties in both the private and public sector....Continue Reading

An employee’s level of sophistication and access to independent legal advice has no bearing on the enforceability of a termination clause. Rahman v. Cannon Design Architecture Inc, 2022 ONCA 451 The Ontario Court of Appeal recently found that subjective considerations cannot override the plain wording of a termination clause. The decision reiterated that it is...Continue Reading

A Single Incident of Sexual Harassment can be Cause for Termination Render v. Thyssenkrupp Elevator (Canada) Limited, 2022 ONCA 310 Ontario’s Court of Appeal recently confirmed that a long tenured employee can be terminated for cause following a single incident of sexual harassment. The decision also provides insight into the different standards required to establish...Continue Reading

Turnpenney Milne is excited to announce the arrival of our new team members.Continue Reading

Esi Codjoe will be speaking Wednesday, May 25, 2022 as part of a panel on “Recent Notable Human Rights Decisions and Developments,” at the Annual Update on Human Rights Law by the Ontario Bar Association. The Annual Update on Human Rights Law returns again this year to get you up-to-speed on substantive and procedural trends...Continue Reading

Esi Codjoe will be speaking Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at Session 4: Traits of Successful Adjudicators: Impartiality, Independence and Integrity, part of the Foundations in Adjudicative Tribunal Competencies Certificate Program by the Canadian Bar Association. Administrative adjudicators must be impartial, independent and exhibit integrity in all stages of their decision making. Learn the difficult task...Continue Reading

In recent months, the provincial government introduced several legislative changes with Bill 88, Working for Workers Act, 2022, which creates new rules that govern the workplace, including increased transparency about employers’ electronic monitoring of its employees. Once in effect, Bill 88 will require large employers with 25 or more employees to tell their workers if,...Continue Reading

Esi Codjoe speaks about her biggest career barrier and urges employers to aim for clearer equity policies in this article posted in Canadian Lawyer Magazine. “The practical reality is that legal considerations of a policy are always going to be defined by compliance with human rights legislation.” To read the full article please follow the...Continue Reading

In the Fall of 2021, Bill 27 Ontario Working for Workers Act prohibited the use of non-compete provisions as of October 25, 2021, except in narrow circumstances involving executives or in a sale of business context. However, the Act does not address the effect the prohibition would have on existing non-compete provisions (i.e., those signed...Continue Reading

Now that the Working for Workers Act, 2021 (described in our December 3, 2021 blog post here) has received Royal Assent, the clock is ticking for employers to prepare and implement a policy on Disconnecting from Work.  In this article, we describe the essential elements of a Disconnecting from Work policy.  We also discuss the...Continue Reading

With schools returning to in-class learning, it’s only a matter of time until kids will be sent home for reasons related to COVID-19, once again putting parents in the impossible position of having to juggle childcare with work responsibilities. Those parents have some options to legally take time off work to take care of their...Continue Reading

Esi Codjoe will be speaking tomorrow at Soar’s Zoom Meeting Presentation titled ‘Navigating Online Justice 2.0.’ Soar’s panel of experts address our evolving reality. Questions will be addressed such as: What have we learned? Has human connectivity suffered when we are screen-bound? What tools have been created or improved to assist the players at the...Continue Reading

This is Part 2 of our two-part discussion of notable employment law decisions of 2021. 3. The Post-Waksdale Cases Last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal released the landmark decision of Waksdale v. Swegon North America, 2020 ONCA 391 (“Waksdale”), which held that a “just cause” termination provision in an employment contract that violated the...Continue Reading

As 2021 draws to a close, we reflect on the employment law decisions that were released over the past year. Below is a high-level overview of the key aspects of five notable case law developments in 2021 that all employers and employees should know about. 1. The IDEL Cases In May 2021, the Ontario government...Continue Reading

On November 30, 2021, the Ontario legislature passed the Working for Workers Act, 2021 (the “Act”) which, once Royal Assent is received, will amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (the “ESA”) and create new statutory rights for provincially-regulated employees in Ontario. In this blog post, we address the following two changes in detail: (i) the...Continue Reading

Tomorrow, November 30th 2021, Esi Codjoe is speaking at the CSME’s webinar “A Culturally Informed Approach to Practice and Legal Proceedings.” In this webinar, Dr. Dere will have the audience engage with an approach to working with cultural factors in clinical practice that emphasizes the integration of evidence from both cultural and clinical psychology with...Continue Reading

By now, many employers are either being legally required to, or choosing to, implement a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for their workplaces. Yet, there is a significant segment of the workforce who remains vaccine resistant. This raises the question of what employers can do in response to workers who refuse to vaccinate – specifically, whether...Continue Reading

Today, on the first day of National Truth and Reconciliation we honour the 150,000 children+ taken from their homes and put into the Canadian residential school system. We stand in solidarity with our Indigenous communities today, and every day. We encourage our staff to take time today to learn, reflect, and listen to this painful...Continue Reading

Since the COVID-19 vaccine became widely available and employers and employees began contemplating returning to a semblance of normalcy (including returning to the physical workplace), the most common inquiries we received surrounded vaccination policies. Throughout the summer, we have fielded numerous questions about the requirement to have a vaccination policy, whether employers can make mandatory...Continue Reading

As Labour Day approaches, unofficially signalling an end to the summer and, perhaps (subject to the Delta variant) a post-COVID-19 world, employers and employees are also considering how their future working arrangements will look. Many employers planning for a return to the office environment after eighteen months of remote work are seeking clarity on their...Continue Reading

On Tuesday August 24th Esi Codjoe is speaking at the Labour Relations Certificate program presented by Ryerson University. Esi will be speaking about workplace rules, discharge and discipline, and representation. For more information about the program please follow the link below: http://lancasterhouse.com/professionalLearningPrograms/show/id/12Continue Reading

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees have been working from remote locations in an effort to socially distance and stay safe. For some, this means working from home, and for others, this might mean working from the family cottage or other destinations across the country. In this article of our Post-Covid Workplace...Continue Reading

We are honoured to announce that Turnpenney Milne LLP has been selected as a Finalist for the 2021 Canadian HR Award for Best Labour and Employment Boutique Law Firm (www.hrawards.ca). The award for Best Labour and Employment Boutique Law Firm is given to a firm who best demonstrates success, expertise and a commitment to its...Continue Reading

THE POST-COVID WORKPLACE: WHAT EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES NEED TO KNOW As case counts dwindle and vaccination rates skyrocket, we can finally look forward to hugging our friends and relatives, indoor dinner parties, haircuts, resuming gym routines and, for some of us, getting back to our workplaces. Over the next month, we will be answering some...Continue Reading