Wrongful dismissal is when you have been unjustly terminated / fired. For a company to successfully argue just cause dismissal, it usually has to provide you with at least a few written warning letters first that set out the reasons why it was not pleased with your performance. An employee should then have a reasonably opportunity to address those issues to improve the performance issues. This is particularly the case with respect to a long-term employee who has a history of positive performance reviews.
Sometimes a company may want to terminate an employee improperly because they think that an employee is being paid too much, and they want to get rid of them. This often happens with long-term employees who can be replaced cheaper by someone younger. The company may allege bogus performance issues in warning letters in order to try to build a case for just cause dismissal. Crangle has successfully defended senior long-term employees in that situation.
A company that accuses an employee of doing something seriously wrong, such as theft or harassment for example, may have grounds for just cause termination. However, this is not always the case and the court has made exceptions where it was held that the company did not have grounds for just cause dismissal. If an allegation of impropriety is made against an employee, a company still has a duty to conduct a fair investigation into the allegations and inform the employee about it. The employee should have an opportunity to respond to those allegations. If the company terminates the employee without performing a fair investigation, then the employee may have grounds to allege a wrongful dismissal.
There are two ways to determine how much severance you will be entitled to.
In Ontario, the Employment Standards Act sets out the minimum amount of notice and severance that you should receive, whether you signed an employment contract or not. If you signed an employment contract, but it is not unenforceable for whatever reason, or if you did not sign one in the first place, then you are entitled to notice / severance under the “common law”. The common law means case law precedents that were decided in a court.
Under the common law, how much severance you are entitled to depends on a number of factors such as your age, your education level, you workplace experience, the availability of comparable alternative employment, among other things. People often think that they are entitled to one month of severance per year of their employment. For example, if you were employed for 9 years, then you would receive 9 months severance. However, there is actually no “rule of thumb” under the common law with respect to severance. There is usually a range with respect to how much severance pay someone is entitled to. The range for an employee terminated after 9 years could be from as little as 5 months on the lower end to 14 months severance on the higher end. A person that is 35 years old with an MBA and terrific reemployment prospects would be in the lower range of severance. A person who is 64 years old with no postsecondary education, would likely be on the higher end of the range. Further, if you were induced to leave previous employment to join the company you just got terminated from, then the court will consider that as well and add it to the length of time for which you were considered to be employed by the company.
Although there is not an exact formula to determine your legal entitlement under the common law, Crangle can help maximize your entitlement. Flexible rates or a contingency agreement may be an option to avoid upfront legal fees.
Call or email for a free consultation to find out if you have a legal case, and if so, how much you may be entitled to. Contingency fee arrangements may be available in appropriate cases so that you do not have to worry about paying legal fees to your lawyer.