Canadian Employment Law Today

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

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