Surprise, Surprise, Your Written Employment Contract Is Actually Worthless!

On June 17, 2020 the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in Waksdale v Swegon North America Inc., where (yet again) it set aside an employment contract the parties presumably entered in good faith and intended to be binding. The result was a significant win for the employee and a shocking surprise for the employer. What went wrong?

The case involves a wrongful dismissal claim by an employee seeking damages because the employer failed to provide common law "reasonable notice" for the dismissal. While there was a written employment contract containing a termination clause limiting the employee to statutory entitlements, he argued the contract was actually an attempt to contract out of minimum standards set out in the Ontario Employment Standards Act, and so void.