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Candu worker can't do safety training pg. 4
Worker had concerns taking refresher
training would change his status despite
reassurances; training was a requirement
for all employees
Separate tort of harassment
quashed by Ontario Court of Appeal
Trial court found harassment of RCMP employee by managers
to be egregious enough to warrant separate damages, but
appeal court found no need for 'novel legal remedy'
BY COURTNEY LAIDLAW
WHEN AN employee suffers mental distress
from harassment at work, that harassment is
often seen as serious enough to warrant damages
relating to wrongful or constructive dismissal.
But in a recent Ontario case, an Ontario work-
er tried to take these damages to the next level
by establishing a freestanding tort of harassment
stemming from an intention to harm him. e
worker was initially successful at the trial court
level, but he was defeated at the next level.
In Merrifield v. Canada (Attorney General),
the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) affirmed
that there is no freestanding tort of harassment in
Ontario. Interestingly, the ONCA did not elim-
inate the possibility of a tort of harassment, but
it noted that this was not the appropriate case to
establish this tort.
e employee in this case had been a member
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
since 1998. He claimed that after he ran for the
FedEx fails to deliver
fair investigation
B.C. worker ousted after investigation into theft of parcels reinstated
and awarded $15,000 in aggravated damages
BY JEFFREY R. SMITH
WHEN AN employer conducts an inves-
tigation into potential misconduct by an
employee, impartiality is important. A pre-
conceived notion that the employee is guilty
and approaching the investigation with the
object of proving that notion will likely lead
to wrongful dismissal damages — and pos-
sibly additional aggravated damages, as one
British Columbia employer learned recently.
Erik Nieminen joined Federal Express
Canada (FedEx) in October 2010 as a part-
time courier handler in Burnaby, B.C. Six
years later, he moved to the position of do-
micile handler based in Squamish, B.C. and
moved to that location. e domicile han-
dler job had more responsibility as the duties
were remote with a lot of driving around de-
October 23, 2019
A shaky foundation for
dismissal pg. 3
Alberta architectural firm didn't give
enough notice for lack-of-work dismissal
and couldn't prove just cause either
EMPLOYER on page 6 »
CREDIT:
RAWF8/Shutterstock
CONCERNS on page 7 »
with Brian Johnston
Ask the Expert pg. 2
Independent contractor choosing
to become more dependent
