My third favourite Christmas movie, Home Alone, premiered in theatres 34 years ago this week. Canonically, Kevin McCallister would be 42 years old now…

As part of a constructive dismissal claim, the plaintiff argued the employer was guilty of negligent investigation. Attempting to distinguish the an earlier ONCA decision that declined to extend the tort to investigations of employees conducted by employers, the plaintiff tried to argue that the investigators in this case were acting in the capacity of peace officers rather than as employer. The court didn’t buy that argument and struck this (and other) parts of the claim: M.P. v. Ontario Power Generation Inc., 2024 ONSC 6295 (CanLII)

The Sobeys case overturning Mia Norrie’s decision to accept the union’s final offer on wages over the employer’s offer (mentioned in this blog on October 25, 2024) is under appeal by the union: Civil Notice of Appeal, filed November 8, 2024.

The Canadian Judicial Counsel released its “Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts” back in September. Slaw has an interesting article evaluating the Guidelines and what can be done to improve them.

The plaintiff was laid off from his job and filed an unsuccessful duty of fair representation complaint with the Ontario Labour Relations Board against his union for declining to grieve his dismissal. Rather than seeking judicial review of the decision to dismiss his complaint, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the union alleging a host of causes of action (discrimination on the basis of disability, wrongful dismissal, defamation of character/slander, unfair representation, coercion, breach of contract, conspiracy to commit a crime against a union member). The union applied to have the case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The court agreed finding that adding a bunch of other causes of action like defamation, coercion, and conspiracy did not change the essential character of the claim and take it outside the exclusive jurisdiction of the OLRB which had already ruled on his issues: Kolacz v. Labourers International Union of North America Local 837, 2024 ONSC 6391 (CanLII)

Via CanLII, Joel John Badali has an interesting article in the Manitoba Law Journal discussing the inconsistent determination of jurisdiction for employment law issues in First Nations communities: Two Too Many Solitudes: Frist Nations Employment Law and the Unintended Effects of Wilson on Indigenous Employers

From the Department of I Can’t Believe I Actually Have To Say This, But I’m Going To Say It: Commissioner Sherry confirms that you can’t use materials created for the Alberta human rights tribunal dispute resolution (TDR) process, which is very clearly intended to be a without prejudice process, in other proceedings: Moen v Ridgeview Developments Ltd, 2024 AHRC 138 (CanLII)

In another interim decision concerning pre-hearing disclosure, Chief Oviatt reviews the law regarding disclosure of medical records and the careful balancing of fairness and privacy that it entails and ultimately orders the disclosure of unredacted copies of the complainant’s previously disclosed medical records (along with a host of other records): Elliott v Imperial Oil Limited, 2024 AHRC 137 (CanLII)

The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal dismisses a complaint in which a former employee argued her disability was a factor in her termination. Member Oshionebo holds that the termination was a result of a workforce reduction strategy after the employer lost one of its biggest clients and reminds us that the mere fact that an employer knew of an employee’s disability at the time of termination of employment is not enough to infer that the disability was a factor in the employer’s decision to terminate the employee: Reyburn v Federated Co-Operatives Limited, 2024 AHRC 134 (CanLII)

A complainant sought judicial review of a decision of the Chief of the Human Rights Tribunal upholding the Director’s decision to dismiss the complaint. Justice Johnston determined that the standard of review of such decisions (under s. 26 of the Alberta Human Rights Act) is reasonableness. Justice Johnston then walked through the Chief’s decision and found it was based on reasoning that is both rational and logical and dismissed the application for judicial review: X v Alberta Human Rights Commission, 2024 ABKB 681 (CanLII)

In bizarre, non-employment law news, a lawyer in Red Deer was briefly jailed after getting into an argument with a judge about a witness subpoena during a criminal trial. After being released from holding, which the judge says the lawyer entered voluntarily, the lawyer left the courthouse and did not return to finish his matter. The incident happened on November 8 and the lawyer has been ordered to attend before the judge on November 22. Excerpts from the transcript are available in the Edmonton Journal article and additional context and commentary is available via Ian Runkle from Runkle of the Bailey. Read it and judge for yourself.

Via HRD, the Yukon government is looking to amend legislation to regulate social workers in the territory following a report by the CBC earlier in the week. The CBC story revealed that a social worker had been spreading QAnon conspiracy theories and was an ardent follower of the Queen of Canada.

Thanks to a conversation with a friend earlier today, it came to my attention that the plaintiff in Egan v. Harbour Air Seaplanes LLP, 2024 BCCA 222 (CanLII) is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Recall that the British Columbia Court of Appeal found that this termination clause was sufficient to rebut the presumption of common law notice:

The Harbour Air group may terminate your employment at any time without cause so long as it provides appropriate notice and severance in accordance with the requirements of the Canada Labour Code.