Legal Blog

Mitigation

Humphrey v. Mene Inc. 2022 Ont CA

Wrongful dismissal action. Employee had been offered and refused a job at a comparable salary and, though not the same management position, a good one. The trial judge refused to deduct for lack of mitigation, saying that the employer had not provided the judge with persuasive evidence as to whether the two roles were comparable. The Court of Appeal held that comparable did not mean identical. It was sufficient that the employee had been offered a senior management position with a salary as good as or more than her previous salary and it was sufficient for the employer to show that the employee had been offered and rejected the job. Any further evidence had to come from the employee. The court reduced the award by 6 months for failure to mitigate.

Written by Jonathan Speigel, the founding partner of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP, leads the litigation and construction practices.