In April, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in Coutinho v Ocular Health Centre Ltd.
("Coutinho"), that an employer
that implemented a layoff during the pandemic, which was
"deemed" by the Ontario Employment Standards
Act, 2000 (the "ESA") to
be a statutorily protected infectious disease emergency leave of
absence ("IDEL"), was nonetheless still
a layoff for common law purposes that may trigger constructive
dismissal.
In our earlier
update on Coutinho, we cautioned of the potential
steep financial consequences for employers that could result from
the Court's decision. It was our opinion that the narrow,
technical, and impractical interpretation of the law in
Coutinho risked a flood of litigation for many Ontario
employers who have had to implement layoffs as a result of the
states of emergency and lockdowns that were (and continue to be)
imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
