Understand Your Ontario Severance Pay Rights With Expert Legal Advice

Severance pay, also known as pay in lieu of notice, is determined by the length of time a court thinks it will take you to find comparable work, taking into consideration your age, type of position, length of service, availability of comparable employment, and other factors – like whether you were headhunted.

Weighing these factors makes for an art, not a science.  For example, extremely short service employees will often be entitled to a surprising about of severance pay.

It’s not just the length of the severance period that’s important, but also what the severance pay consists of. The starting point is that you should receive pay for everything you would have earned – that means salary, bonuses, commissions, RRSP and pension contributions, car allowances, and pay for lost benefit coverage.

Stock options, RSUs / PSUs, and equity grants are also part of your legal entitlements. Our lawyers frequently help executives recover these important parts of their compensation.

Employment contracts can limit the length and scope of your severance pay, but only if their termination clauses drafted properly. Our lawyers are experts at invalidating contract terms which limit severance pay rights, and we have the court decisions to prove it.

The difference between an enforceable and unenforceable termination clause can be huge – e.g. the difference between 8 weeks and 24 months of severance pay!

It can, but most of the time an independent contractor is actually just an employee in disguise – usually because the employer did not want to pay severance pay. But courts have no time for that and will treat these people with the same rights as if they were an employee. Some of our lawyers’ biggest wins have been for workers improperly classified as “independent contractors”.

A constructive dismissal occurs when an employer unilaterally makes a major change to the terms and conditions of employment, or when it has done or failed to do something that makes ongoing employment intolerable.

Constructive dismissal is a form of legal protection that enables employees to leave and claim severance pay, instead of being forced to choose between quitting or accepting an unfair change (or working in an intolerable workplace).

Whether or not to claim constructive dismissal is a nuanced decision which requires expert legal advice. If you think you’ve been constructively dismissed, consult with us today.

Just cause, also known as wilful misconduct, is often quoted by the courts as the “capital punishment of employment law”. But just because an employer thinks there’s just cause for the dismissal doesn’t mean that decision will hold up in court. Our lawyers are experts at picking apart these cases and will give you the cold hard truth on whether just cause will be upheld, but spoiler – it likely won’t.

We charge for initial consultations as a matter of principle. You want to know the cold hard truth about your case, and we don’t want you to think the free consultation is just a gimmick to get you to sign up. Charging for a consultation ensures there’s no filter on the advice you get.

At the consultation our lawyers will determine the fee structure that works best for your case. Usually, but not always, that’s a bundle of hourly rates and back-ended results fees. In all cases we aim to be accessible and transparent with fees. Book a consultation and find out what’s right for you.

Our lawyers are Bay Street veterans who regularly practice on both sides of the aisle.  That means they know how employers act and think, and can use that to your advantage.  It also means our lawyers are the same top tier talent that your employer would otherwise be paying huge sums to engage, but in this case they’re working for you.  But above all, our lawyers are smart, ethical, hardworking, and resilient – precisely the type of person you’d want in your corner.