Matthews v Ocean Nutrition: Departed employee awarded $1M bonus from company’s sale during notice period
A dismissed employee is entitled to a bonus that vests during their notice period, absent clear contractual language to the contrary.
Atlantic Lottery Corporation Inc v Babstock: SCC Rejects Waiver of Tort in Class Actions
Canadian courts have struggled with whether a "waiver of tort" stands as an independent cause of action for certification under the Class Actions Act, SNL 2001, c C-18.1 [CAA] and other provinces' equivalent acts. A waiver of tort allows the plaintiff to forego damages and seek disgorgement of the defendant's profits from wrongful conduct. Therefore, […]
Weighing the Public Interest: SCC Applies the Pointes Anti-SLAPP Analysis in Bent v Platnick
Does protecting an individual’s freedom of expression supersede protecting those harmed by it? Where does the public interest lie within this analysis? These are the questions that the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) grappled with in the recent decision of Bent v Platnick, 2020 SCC 23 [Platnick], decided alongside 1704604 Ontario Ltd. v Pointes Protection Association, 2020 SCC 22 [Pointes]. This […]
Mixed Sexual Orientations Are No Obstacle to Forming a Conjugal Relationship: AP v Canada
In a spousal immigration decision at the Federal Court last month, the legal definition of a conjugal relationship was expanded to include couples who have different sexual orientations — in this case, a gay man and straight woman. In AP v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 906 [AP v Canada], Justice Janet M. Fuhrer […]