PM40065782
Emplo
y
ment Law Today
Canad ad a ian
www.employmentlawtoday.com
May 9, 2018
Doctors not entitled to damages
following hospital department closure
BY JEFFREY R. SMITH
TWO ONTARIO doctors who were put out
of work by the closure of department at the
hospital where they were on staff were not
legally employees and not entitled to wrong-
ful dismissal damages under the province's
Public Hospitals Act, the Ontario Superior
Court of Justice has ruled.
Dr. Douglas Beattie, 65, was a doctor at the
Women's College Hospital in Toronto. He
started working at the hospital in its emer-
gency centre initially around 1991 and then
moved to its urgent care centre. In 2000, he
became director of the urgent care centre.
Dr. George Luczkiw, 64, was also a doctor at
the Women's College Hospital who started
in the emergency centre around 1982 and
then joined the urgent care centre.
In 2012, the hospital decided to close the
urgent care centre. As per protocol under
legislation, it submitted a service change
form to the Toronto Central Local Health
Integration Network indicating it would not
longer operate the urgent care centre, which
was a "service" defi ned under Ontario's Lo-
cal Health System Integration Act, 2006.
e network accepted the service change
proposal and the hospital set Sept. 10 as the
closure date for the urgent care centre.
As a result of this closure, both Dr. Beat-
tie and Dr. Luczkiw were no longer working
at the hospital eff ective Sept. 10, 2012. e
hospital used the authority granted under
s. 44 of the Ontario Public Hospitals Act —
allowing a hospital board to revoke the ap-
Changes to remote work arrangement,
bonus are constructive dismissal
Oral agreement 22 years earlier for working from home,
quarterly bonuses based on revenue all conditions of employment: Court
BY JEFFREY R. SMITH
AN Ontario company constructively dis-
missed a long-time employee when it uni-
laterally changed her work-from-home ar-
rangement — that the employee had been
working under for 22 years — and reduced
her last quarterly bonus to a fraction of her
usual amount, the Ontario Superior Court
of Justice has ruled.
Rosemary Hagholm, 60, began working
for MicroAge, an information technology
(IT) services company based in Toronto, in
April 1982. She worked for MicroAge for 10
years until April 1992, when she quit because
she had moved to Waterloo, Ont., about 110
km from MicroAge's offi ce. Hagholm felt the
commute to the offi ce would be too much so
it was time to move on.
Two years later, a vice-president at Micro-
Age asked Hagholm if she would come back
on a six-month contract. Hagholm agreed to
Equal pay for equal work
now law in Ontario pg. 3
Pay discrimination for part-time,
temporary workers focus
of amendments
Acknowledging the problem
of sexual harassment pg. 4
Many organizations may think things
aren't so bad but may be caught
off-guard when it happens
WORKER on page 6 »
DEPENDENT
on page 7 »
Ask the Expert pg. 2
Investigations:
The risk of doing it yourself
CREDIT:
MIKECPHOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK
with Colin Gibson