Mitigation - Articles & Videos

The duty to mitigate requires an employee who has been wrongfully dismissed to make reasonable efforts to mitigate their damages (i.e.: lost employment income) by finding comparable employment. The key words here are reasonable and comparable. Employees are not expected to make finding new work their new full time job. Likewise, employees are not expected to go and find just any job; a software engineer does not have to accept a line-cook position. The catch is that once an employee accepts a new job – comparable or not – every dollar earned during their notice period is deducted from any award they ultimately receive.

We often tell our clients that the reasonable notice period is a bridge to another role, not a windfall for a dismissed employee. Notice is meant to support an employee until they find a job, and its length is based on the Court’s estimation of how long it will take the employee to do so.

An employee dismissal creates a two-way street of obligations. The employer is required to provide the employee with reasonable notice…

Our 2024 Year in Review continues. We are in an HR Law Era where our courts remain concerned with the power imbalance in the employment relationship and will find ways to help employees.

In the context of the sale of a business, an employee’s duty to mitigate might require them to accept the same job with the purchaser, even though the vendor-employer technically triggered a termination.

A dismissed employee’s damages are subject to mitigation and any income they earn during the common law notice period is to be deducted from the damages owing from their former employer.

A recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal is an important reminder of how costly fixed term agreements can be for businesses when they are not used correctly.

All employees who are dismissed have a duty at common law to mitigate their damages by finding comparable replacement employment as quickly as possible.

Can an employer dismiss an employee, then change its mind, unilaterally retract the dismissal, and require that the employee continue to work? The answer to this question is currently unfolding before the world in real time.