“If you’re faced with a potential constructive dismissal claim, it’s important to zero in on the facts of your case and [determine] whether or not the legal test applies. And every case is determined on its own facts.”
So says Nafisa Chowdhury, an employment and commercial litigation lawyer at Miller Thomson in Toronto, after an Ontario court ruled that a worker’s pandemic layoff qualified as emergency leave under employment standards legislation but was still constructive dismissal under the common law.
The now-59-year-old worker was employed by SDT North America, a Cobourg, Ont.-based supplier of specialized remote software and technical support services to customers in Canada, the US, Asia, and Latin America. He was one of 16 employees in Canada and was hired in 2006.
