Another judicial reminder to draft proper termination clauses

By / Employment/Labour /

A recent Superior Court of Justice decision serves as a reminder that termination clauses that are not consistent the Employment Standards Act 2000 (ESA) will be found to be unenforceable by the court. When that happens, the clause effectively disappears. An employer that terminates an employee’s employment without a clause must provide prior reasonable notice …

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Failing to use preferred pronouns in the workplace is discriminatory

By / Employment/Labour /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • The importance of the proper use of personal pronouns in the workplace cannot be understated and employers who ignore workers’ human rights do so at their own peril, says Toronto employment lawyer Ellen Low. Gender identity and expression were added as grounds of discrimination under Ontario’s Human Rights Code (HRC) in 2012, …

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The TLA offering members the chance to be more social

By / Legal Services /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • The Toronto Lawyers’ Association (TLA) is inviting members to have some fun this summer. “The TLA has three pillars, knowledge, advocacy and community,” says executive director/library director Joan Rataic-Lang. “After the reluctance to socialize due to the pandemic, I believe there is a need to enhance that feeling of community. We recently …

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Why settlement is better than litigation in personal injury cases

By / Personal Injury /

By Paul Russell, LegalMatters Staff • There is a good reason why more than 90 per cent of personal injury lawsuits never make it to trial, says Ontario personal injury lawyer Joshua Goldberg. “I always advise my clients that receiving a settlement is better than gambling on a verdict,” says Goldberg, principal of Joshua Goldberg …

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Service dogs can provide comfort after a traumatic experience

By / Personal Injury /

At Gluckstein Lawyers, we represent clients dealing with the physical and emotional fallout of their injuries whether they are victims of a motor vehicle accident, a sexual assault or a negligent medical procedure. In these cases, specially trained dogs can have a positive impact on people as they navigate through an extremely difficult time in their …

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Does your employer have the right to lay you off? It depends

By / Employment/Labour /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • A properly drafted and implemented employment contract can help avoid uncertainty but when an employer makes an unexpected change in the working relationship, the average worker may not understand their rights and obligations, says Toronto employment lawyer Jeffrey M. Andrew.  Andrew, a partner with Cavalluzzo LLP, says the employer’s view of …

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Fight for your rights after an insurance claim denial

By / Disability Law /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • Trauma-informed disability and insurance lawyer Leanne Goldstein says an insurance claim denial can be stressful. And your anxiety level is sure to rise even more if you have been accused of misrepresentation or fraud.  However, she says an unfounded assertion of material misrepresentation is more common than many may believe – especially with mortgage disability …

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There will be new sheriffs in town, but is that what Alberta needs?

By / Criminal Law /

By LegalMatters Staff • Alberta is getting more sheriffs to handle specific tasks that are mostly indirectly related to fighting crime. When the provincial budget was released in April, it set aside $2 million to create a Fugitive Apprehension Sheriffs Support Team (FASST) team. This group – consisting of 10 sheriffs based in Calgary and …

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Fixed-term employment contracts have a time and a place

By / Employment/Labour /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • A fixed-term employment agreement serves an important contractual role in the workplace but companies should be careful how they use them, says Toronto-area employment lawyer and mediator Stuart Rudner. “There is actually some confusion among employers when it comes to these contracts,” says Rudner, founder and principal at Rudner …

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Proposed federal amendments to the sex registry fall short

By / Criminal Law /

By LegalMatters Staff • At the end of April the federal government proposed changes to the National Sex Offender Registry. The modifications, contained in Bill S-12, are in response to a 2022 Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision that found two Criminal Code provisions relating to the registry were inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of …

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