Recently, Ontario’s Court of Appeal concluded in this case that the following termination clause was legally enforceable and that the terminated employee who had been employed for 19 years was entitled to 19 weeks termination pay.
The termination clause
The Company’s policy with respect to termination is that employment may be terminated by either party with notice in writing. The notice period shall amount to one week per year of service with a minimum of four weeks or the notice required by the applicable labour legislation.
My guess is that most employment lawyers who have read this decision are scratching their collective heads, and asking, “What?”
This decision will result in many plaintiff-side lawyers taking pause and re-evaluating their cases.
Until this case was released many trial judges were bending over backwards to find uncertainty and ambiguity in termination clauses and striking them down which benefited employees. For a summary of some of these cases click here.
The decision, in this case, is a good case in point. An enforceable termination clause meant the employee was entitled to 19 weeks termination pay. If the clause had been found to be unenforceable however then the employee would have been entitled to closer to 19 months notice.
Lesson to be learned
At the moment, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to guess whether or not an Ontario trial judge will enforce a termination clause in an employment contract. The Court of Appeal has found a number of such clauses to be enforceable however for the last few years trial judges have been finding ways to get around these cases or as lawyers say, have concluded these decisions are distinguishable.
In this case, the Court of Appeal may have been trying to bring more certainty to the law as it relates to the enforceability of termination clauses. In the short term, however, I predict that this decision will create more uncertainty in this area of the law.
