Three Best Rated Award-winning Canadian Employment Lawyers talks about five things everyone needs to know about Employment Law

Employment Law is a set of laws that regulates the relationship between employers and employees related to employment affairs. Employment lawyers advise and solve the legal disputes that arise between them. The lawyers deal with several employment issues such as Wrongful Dismissal, Workplace Harassment, Job Layoffs, and a lot more.

Most of the employees don’t possess adequate knowledge about employment law that governs their occupation. When known, it may help a lot of employees to avoid landing in trouble at their job. So, Three Best Rated® has contacted two eminent Employment Lawyers from Canada to learn about the five things everyone needs to know about employment law.

Charles Osuji of Osuji & Smith Lawyers from Calgary, AB, and Bram Lecker of Lecker & Associates from Toronto, ON, are Three Best Rated Award-winning Employment lawyers. Each of them recommends five points that everyone should know about employment law.

Charles Osuji’s Recommendations:

• If an employer terminates an employee without cause, the employer is not required to provide the employee with any reason for the termination. Conversely, if an employer alleges cause, the employer must provide the particulars of that allegation.

• The employment standard legislation provides for the minimum termination entitlements for the employee. Absent any restrictions in the employment contract, the employee would be entitled to more termination entitlements under the Common Law (judge-made laws).

• At termination, an employer owes the employee certain duties such as good faith, and the duty to be candid, honest, and sensitive in the manner of dismissal. A breach of any of these duties might attract moral damages.

• A terminated employee has to mitigate their losses by seeking comparable employment within a reasonable time of losing their employment. Further to the employee’s duty to mitigate their losses, any income earned from the mitigation efforts might be used to set off any termination entitlements owed by the employer.

• If an employment contract is silent on how to calculate an employee’s severance upon termination, the employee’s termination entitlement (severance) will depend on a few factors such as age, position, length of employment, qualifications, availability of alternative employment (commonly referred to as the “Bardal Factors” based on the court’s decision in Bardal v Globe & Mail Ltd., (1960) OWN 253 (Ont HC).

Bram Lecker’s Recommendations:

• Employees should never sign an agreement without first consulting a Lawyer.

• There is a high burden of proof on Employers if they want to prove cause for dismissal.

• The assessment of notice and severance is now based on the Employment Market criterion rather than the old traditional factors such as age, position, and length of service.

• Employers are well-advised to engage neutral outplacement counselling providers to encourage mitigation.

• Most Short-Term Disability plans are administered by Insurance Companies but are paid for and controlled by the Employer. Disability coverage is a contractual wage right.

• Upon return to work from an illness/medical leave, many Employers treat their sick and disabled workers as damaged goods.

About Charles Osuji

Charles immigrated to Canada from Nigeria in 2011, just after a year he was called to the Nigerian Bar Association. He later joined Osuji & Smith Lawyers firm in 2013. The law firm was founded by Jim Smith as Smith Law Office in 1980. But within a short span, with his energy and enthusiasm in the practice of law, he became a Partner in the firm, which was renamed Osuji & Smith Lawyers in 2016. In 2017, Charles became the sole owner of the Firm and its Managing Partner, acquiring the practice from Jim. He feels proud about purchasing a 37-year-old law firm in 2017 after being called to the Bar barely three years earlier. He made Osuji & Smith Lawyers into one of Calgary’s top, fast growing law firms with a strategy of providing exceptional service at affordable rates with specializations in areas of most importance to the community, including employment law. They have won or nominated for several awards due to their focus on excellence.

About Bram Lecker

Bram Lecker is the principal of Lecker & Associates. He has been practicing employment law for more than three decades. His firm runs with eight lawyers, specialists in Employment and Disability Law, primarily representing employees. Bram has many remarkable achievements in his practice. One of his cases, Keenan v. Canac Kitchens Ltd., 2016 ONCA 79, which established the rights of ‘dependant contractors’, has been recognized as one of the ten most important judicial decisions of 2016. Lecker Lawyers take pride in the Hilton v. Norampac Inc. case “family values” decision, they fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. It established that Employers could not punish and terminate their Employees for reasonably declining to perform work duties that would detrimentally impact their family lives and responsibilities. Bram’s work in developing and implementing the form of “Recovery (Contingency)” fee and information agreement to meet the needs of the clients, most of whom have never accessed legal services, and are wary of taking on an Employer with greater resources, has been adopted by many Plaintiff-side Lawyers.

About ThreeBestRated

Three Best Rated® was created in 2014 with the simple goal of finding the top 3 local businesses, professionals, restaurants, health care providers, and everything in-between, in any city. Every business is meticulously handpicked by our employees. We check business’s reputation, history, complaints, ratings, proximity, satisfaction, trust, cost, general excellence, reviews, and more, using our 50-Point Inspection. We only display businesses that are verified by our employees. Other places will call this “hard work” and “unnecessary”. We call it “due diligence” and “the right thing to do”. Our website is updated on a regular basis for quality and the latest business information.

Three Best Rated has the honor of helping 4.5 million customers every month find the best businesses in any city – without any effort!