The Ontario human rights case of Islam v. Big Inc., 2013 HRTO 2009 garnered recent media attention due to the cumulatively large damage award made to the applicants. However, this case also provides a useful reminder of the evidentiary burden on the parties to prove or defend a case of discrimination before the Human Rights […]
Imagine that you are a successful commissioned sales person, having diligently worked for 15 years for Company X. You sell widgets, and are paid a commission as a percentage of the net profit on every order of widgets that you close. Your compensation formula has been essentially the same since you started with Company X. […]
In a decision released on December 20, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada has declared that three provisions of the Criminal Code (“Code”) criminalizing various activities of sex workers are unconstitutional: Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72. The constitutional challenged was launched by Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch, and Valerie Scott, current and/or […]
Virtually every union has a constitution which sets out certain rules and standards of behaviour applicable to all members of the union. For example, when the union is on a legal strike, the constitution will almost always prohibit a union member from crossing the picket line to go to work. What happens when union members […]
The Relationship between Individual Members and Their Unions is Contractual In Ontario, unions have unsuccessfully advanced two different arguments to try to persuade the courts to enforce internal union fines. Both arguments are premised on an important Supreme Court of Canada decision: Berry v. Pulley, 2002 SCC 40. This decision found that an individual union […]
Is a Union Member’s Refusal to Pay Union Fines a Contractual Breach? The first argument advanced by unions in favour of civil enforcement of their fines was that the provisions for disciplinary fines in the union constitution are part of the contract between the member and the union. Unions have argued where a member is […]
Union Trials as Arbitrations An argument that has been advanced by unions seeking the civil enforcement of their fines is that the trial procedure set out in various union constitutions is essentially an arbitration agreement. This argument proposes that when an individual joins a union, that individual agrees that certain disputes that may arise between […]
The Supreme Court of Canada has paved the way for more Ontario litigants to obtain a final judgment without the time or expense of a full trial. Last month, the Supreme Court released companion decisions which broaden the circumstances under which judges may entertain motions for summary judgment. In the recent case Hyrniak v. Mauldin […]
Trinity Western University’s (“TWU”) new law school in British Columbia has lost its bid to become accredited by Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada (“LSUC”). On April 24, 2014, Convocation, the governing board of the LSUC, voted against the accreditation of a proposed new law school at TWU. The vote was 28 to 21 against […]
In a decision released in December 2013, the Supreme Court has held that employee pension payments should not reduce the severance payment or damages otherwise payable by an employer for wrongful dismissal. The facts of the Supreme Court’s decision are as follows. Richard Waterman was employed with IBM in British Columbia, when he was terminated […]
