If you include a termination clause in your employment contracts that limits notice of termination to Employment Standards Act (“ESA”) minimums, then read on. This blog summarizes a case decided last month where the courts again refused to enforce an ESA termination clause.
The Employee
Catherine Bergeron signed a contract with the following termination clause before starting her $ 90 000 job as the General Manager at a health and fitness facility.
The Termination Clause
Movati Athletic Inc. may terminate your employment without cause at any time during the term of your employment upon providing you with notice or pay in lieu of notice, and severance, if applicable, pursuant to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 and subject to the continuation of your group benefits coverage, if applicable, for the minimum period required by the Employment Standards Act, 2000 as amended from time to time. [underlining added]
There was also a probation clause in her employment contract which limited Ms. Bergeron’s notice of termination during the probationary period to: “only providing you with the minimum notice necessary to ensure compliance with the [ESA] as amended from time to time” (underlining added).
The Termination
A year and 4 months later (after the probationary period expired), the employer terminated Ms. Bergeron’s employment without just cause and paid her the two weeks she was owed under the ESA and continued her group benefits for two weeks as required under the ESA. Although under no obligation to pay her more than 2 weeks’ termination pay under the ESA, the employer decided to pay her an additional two weeks’ termination pay. In total, she received 4 weeks’ termination pay after about one year of employment.
The Initial Court Decision
Ms. Bergeron claimed the termination clause was not enforceable and the judge agreed by concluding that the termination clause was not sufficiently clear to rebut the presumption of reasonable notice at common law. As a result, the judge did not enforce the termination clause and concluded Ms. Bergeron was entitled to, among other things, pay in lieu of three months’ notice.
The Appeal
The employer appealed this decision to Ontario’s Divisional Court.
Test to Determine Whether a Judge will Enforce a Termination Clause
The Divisional Court formulated the following tests to apply when an ESA termination clause is challenged.
- All contractual provisions must meet the minimum notice requirements for termination without cause set out in the Employment Standards Act;
- There is a presumption that an employee is entitled to common law notice upon termination of employment without cause;
- Provided minimum legislative requirements are met, an employer can enter into an agreement to contract out of the provision for reasonable notice at common law upon termination without cause;
- The presumption that an employee is entitled to reasonable notice at common law may be rebutted if the contract specifies some other period of notice as long as that other notice period meets or exceeds the minimum requirements in the ESA;
- The intention to rebut the right to reasonable notice at common law “must be clearly and unambiguously expressed in the contractual language used by the parties;”
- The need for clarity does not mean a specific phrase or particular formula must be used, or require the contract to state that “the parties have agreed to limit an employee’s common law rights on termination”. The wording must however, be “readily gleaned” from the language agreed to by the parties;
- Any ambiguity will be resolved in favour of the employee and against the employer who drafted the termination clause in accordance with the principle of contra proferentum; and
- Surrounding circumstances may be considered when interpreting the terms of a contract but they must never be allowed to overwhelm the words of the agreement itself.
Reasons Why Divisional Court Concluded Some of the Tests Were Not Satisfied
Test # 6: The intention to rebut the right to reasonable notice at common law “must be clearly and unambiguously expressed in the contractual language used by the parties”
Finding: The words “pursuant to the ESA” may be interpreted to mean that the notice period in the termination clause complies with the minimum requirements in the legislation, but they do not clearly provide that reasonable notice at common law no longer applies.
Test # 7: Any ambiguity will be resolved in favour of the employee and against the employer who drafted the termination clause in accordance with the principle of contra proferentum:
Finding: The words in this termination clause provide that “the notice provision” is “pursuant to the Employment Standards Act” and group benefits coverage payments must be in accordance with the “minimum period required by the Employment Standards Act”. Read together, the minimum period required by the ESA could refer to both the notice provision and the group benefits coverage, or only to the group benefits coverage… where there are two plausible interpretations, the courts should prefer the interpretation that grants better rights to the employee, who did not draft the provision… Given these two possible interpretations, the motion judge made no palpable and overriding error in concluding that the provision should be interpreted in the manner that was more favourable to Ms. Bergeron.
In addition the Divisional Court noted: “The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that “contracts must be read as a whole, giving the words their ordinary and grammatical meaning”(Sattva at para. 47). This assists the court to determine the objective intentions of the parties to the agreement.” It then compared Ms. Bergeron’s rights on termination during the probationary period compared to her rights on termination after she had completed the probationary period and concluded:
The words “only” or “minimum” are not required language. However, the fact that the words “only” and “minimum” are used in the probation clause, and the word “minimum” is used in the group benefits provision of the termination clause, but neither is used in the notice provision in the termination clause, reflects a difference in the intention of the parties. … Based on the wording of the termination clause as seen in the context of the Agreement as a whole, the motion judge made no palpable and overriding error in concluding that the termination clause was not sufficiently clear and unequivocal to rebut the presumption that the reasonable notice requirements at common law apply:…
Does your head hurt? Mine does.
For more blogs on this issue, click here.
Lessons to Be Learned:
- I think including an ESA termination clause in an employment contract is still a good idea for some employees. But the clause must be very carefully drafted because some judges will bend over backwards not to enforce it.
- If you are going to include a probationary period clause in your employment contract then it must be very carefully drafted. For various reasons, I am not a big fan of these clauses. For blogs setting out these reasons, click here and here.
- If you have an ESA termination clause in your employment contract and you decide to pay a terminated employee additional termination pay then make sure the employee signs a release and indemnity for that additional amount.
For almost 30 years, Doug MacLeod of the MacLeod Law Firm has been advising employers on all aspects of the employment relationship. If you have any questions, you can contact him directly at 416-317-9894 or at doug@macleodla