New Mass Termination Claim Certified In Ontario

On January 2, 2014, Justice Perell certified a class action alleging that, among other things, a group of over 500 putative class members had been wrongfully dismissed by their former (now insolvent ) employer. Justice Perell's decision in Brigaitis v. IQT Ltd., c.o.b. as IQT Solutions  comes on the heels of a flurry of employment-related certification decisions focusing almost exclusively on claims pertaining to eligibility for overtime pay . Accordingly, it is one of only a few recent decisions from the class action bench in Ontario to address the certification of mass wrongful dismissal actions.

The action in Brigaitis was brought on behalf of a group of former employees whose employment with IQT Solutions, a telemarketing firm, had been terminated after the company commenced insolvency proceedings in the U.S. and Canada in 2011. The action, which named the company and its directors, followed allegations in the U.S. that executives of the company had mismanaged