Have I Been Wrongfully Dismissed?
Notice: The following is not legal advice, and cannot be applied to any particular situation. It is meant only as general information for the purpose of discussion. If you have a particular employment law issue, you should retain a qualified, licensed lawyer for assistance.
Do you find yourself in one of the following situations: Has your employer told you that you are being “dismissed”, “terminated”, “Laid off”, “fired” or some similar thing? Even if you still are employed, has your employer made your job unbearable or unacceptable by creating an unsafe work environment, or by changing your pay, hours, work location, job title, responsibilities, etc.? Has your employer been treating you in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to do your job?
If so, you may have been wrongfully dismissed.
Many people think that the word “wrongful” in ”wrongful dismissal” refers to a situation where an employer terminates an employee without a valid reason. This is incorrect. The word “wrongful” in this context refers to a failure of the employer to give an employee proper notice, or pay in lieu of proper notice, when they terminate the employee.
What Should I Get When I Lose My Job?
First of all, unless you did something that justifies you being fired (which usually has to be something pretty bad), your employer needs to continue your benefits and pay you the statutory minimum termination pay and severance pay required under Ontario’s Employment Standards Act. The employer cannot deny you these things or hold them back to try to get you to sign anything.
But that’s just a small part of your rights. Here’s the part that most people don’t know, and they won’t tell you about at the Ministry of Labour: under what is known as the common law, you may be entitled to much more. Common law employee entitlements are regularly at least four times more than what you get under the Employment Standards Act requirements.
That means that if you only receive what the Employment Standards Act states, you are probably losing out on a lot more money.
How Do I Get My Full Entitlement?
Getting everything you have a right to is a complicated business, but one that good employment lawyers, such as Sommer Law, can handle for you. And due to a helpful tax break, the fees you pay to a lawyer to obtain your just entitlement are usually tax deductible.
If you’d like Sommer Law to provide you with a FREE CONSULTATION to determine whether you may have a good case against your employer, please contact us HERE.
Sommer Law can get you what you deserve!