Layoff is illegal in most circumstances. If your employer has temporarily laid you off, you may have a claim against your employer for monetary compensation or what is referred to as severance. In Martellaci v CFC/INX Ltd., the Court noted that if an employer puts an employee’s employment status on hold (as is the case…
In May 2020, in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government introduced O:Reg. 228/20: Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (the “IDEL”), a regulation under the Employment Standards Act, 2000, S.O. 2000, c. 41 (the “ESA”). The IDEL provides that during the “COVID-19 period” (March 1, 2020 to January 1, 2022), non-unionized employees whose hours…
What do I do now that my Canada Pension Plan disability (CPP-D) benefits application has been denied? How can I successfully obtain CPP-D benefits? These are common questions, which we have heard from a number of clients, who have come to us with respect to their CPP-D benefits applications. What are CPP-D BENEFITS? The CPP-D…
Riccio v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FCA 108 On May 27, 2021, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) judicially reviewed a decision of the Social Security Tribunal (SST) Appeal Division, which had denied Canada Pension Plan disability (CPP-D) benefits to the Applicant, Mr. Riccio. Following the seminal case, Villani v Canada (AG), the Federal Court…
It is often said that litigants only get one kick at the can and cannot try again later with a better pair of boots. The doctrine of functus officio operates to effectively impose the same restraint on judges. As a general rule, once a judge has rendered a final decision, she is barred from reopening,…
For all its strengths, our adversary system has its shortcomings. Since the parties control the presentation of their case, if a fact or law is not in a party’s interest to bring up, the judge may never hear of it, however relevant it may be. To overcome this shortcoming, the court can, in exceptional circumstances,…
Like American politics, the legal profession has suffered a decline in civility. In the heat of a hard-fought trial, “my friend” is treated more like a foe. Words traded verge on the rude and crude. Unlike politicians, lawyers are bound, as a matter of professional obligation, to be courteous and civil. At the same time,…
An evidence revolution has been afoot for some years with the gradual ascendancy of a principled approach to admissibility in favour of the traditional rules-and-exceptions approach. Marking the latest milestone in the revolution is the new analytical framework for admitting prior consistent statements articulated by Justice David Doherty in R. v. Khan. Revamping the Law…
Charitable giving has a long and honourable tradition, as the names of many university buildings and hospital wings attest. Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Management is a tribute to its namesake, whose family has donated over $27 million to the university. Earlier this year, the main campus of Toronto Ease General was rechristened Michael Garron…
Over a century ago, without his knowing it, legendary jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes spawned the case for judicial diversity in ten words: “the life of the law is not logic, but experience.” Bursting from these words is a truth we have known all along. Legal issues often pose uneasy choices. In choosing whose stories to…