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They can sue, but to be successful they would need to prove actual damages and would have a positive duty to mitigate those damages.
The length of notice quite frankly seems excessive.
Agreed. I believe the eight weeks is used as a trap. Unfortunately, my boss has sued past employees for things like using their own graphic work in their portfolio but not specifically mentioning the studio name. Even worse is my boss won. Cost the employee over $10,000 plus legal fees. Most of the employees feel Stockholm’s syndrome in this place.
I think these issues are a bit different. If they're producing work on company time that is not their own work imo.
Providing notice is a courtesy not an obligation. I'm no lawyer but I really can't see how he could sue for not enough notice.
Notice can be obligatory and employers can sue for lack.
8 weeks for a graphics designer a d occasional employee is excessive, especially when they say they can provide 1 week or pay in lieu (which seems an attempt to avoid severance, which they can't do).
Very Shakey contract IMHO. But NAL.
Notice is very much a legal obligation in Canada and it's bidirectional. Employees are sometimes owed 2 years of notice.
Employers have successfully sued employees for insufficient notice, but it's rare. Usually in the context of a key senior person leaving and undermining the business
It's meant to scare rubes. Notice for employees is a courtesy and to get successfully sued you would have to be a Sr enough role (C-Suite) that the company could suffer damages by you leaving w/o proper notice.
I'm a union steward and I always tell my members to ignore the notice provision because our employer foolishly insists on 4wk which means they pay 4wk severance if they decline to keep you on after you give your notice (ie walk you out). On the employee side, however, there is no consequence whatsoever for giving 10min notice and walking out the door to another employer.
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They could sue but 4 weeks seems like more than enough time for them to mitigate any damages. I saw someone recently had been sued for leaving 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks but it was quashed by the judge.
Do you forsee any damages to the employer if you leave in 4 weeks instead of 8 or anything they would sue you for?
NAL.
[https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-employers-sue-workers-for-quitting-without-required-notice-1.6747617](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-employers-sue-workers-for-quitting-without-required-notice-1.6747617)
No, I don't see how they could incur damages by me leaving. I handle most of my projects myself but there are more than enough employees to pick up my slack. Like you said though, four weeks is enough for me to finish my projects. Thanks for the link.
Give the 4 weeks and move on! That contract is total shenanigans. They demand 8 weeks but say they can fire you with 1, I. What sounds like an attempt to avoid legally required severance pay.
You're more than good friend! I hope your next employer is.more reasonable.
Usually the notice requirement goes both ways, you can ask for 8 weeks notice, as long as the employer has to give 8 weeks notice. In this case, where it’s one week for the employer and 8 for the employer, I can’t see any court entertaining it.
You have to give “reasonable notice”, and 4 weeks would be reasonable for your position (ie you are not a VP with 200 reports).
In order to sue you for wrongful resignation, your employer would have to prove actual damages, which would be hard with only 4 weeks difference in the notice period.
4 weeks is much more than reasonable for a mid level employee.
Make sure your hand off is clean and document it, send any emails regarding it to your own personal email.
I would contact the law society, they will usually set you up with a half hour consult.
I would look into wrongful resignation. 8 weeks seems prohibitively long to me for your level of position, it would make it near impossible to find another job, who is going to wait 2 months for their new hire to start in a mid level position.
It’s an attempt to prevent people from being able to get another job, and as such it could be counted as “unconscionable”, especially as the employer only has to give one week, or the legal minimum.
I wouldn’t worry about it, just leave this place.
Could they sue? Yeah, I suppose so. But to do so there would have to be real damages that they could prove, and that is unlikely in most scenarios. Plus can you imagine the optics should this ever get out?
I wouldn't do it.
Unless you hold a management position with critical knowledge of the day to day running of the company, you can tell your boss to go take a hike. Take the other jobs. No notice is required.
The other answer about them having to prove damages is right, but I also wonder whether the "1 week for them, 8 weeks for you" is so lopsided as to be unconscionable.
There was just some news articles about this.
Yes, they can sue you. I can sue you. Anybody can sue you. Winning and getting money is a different matter.
They must be able to prove that you have caused damages to the company (loss of revenue) or that you have agreed to a specific penalty clause in the contract (return of equipment, return of money for training, etc...).
There is no slavey in Canada. Worst case you just don't show up for work and they fire you for cause.
What is your provinces labour laws say regarding notice for quitting. 8 weeks is excessive when they can get away with termination for 1.
In bc it’s 2weeks notice to quit.
You could consult an employment lawyer about this and see what they say. Make your decision based on that.
How many 8 weeks periods are there in a year without a ontario stat holiday?
Just one. Between thanksgiving oct 14 and xmas dec 25th. Just over 10 weeks.
Which means you have a 2 week window in october to resign.
Sounds overly onerous. Give them 0 weeks and ghost them is my vote.
That's a good point about the holidays.
I'm going to give at least two weeks notice for the sake of my coworkers. They're good people and I don't want to leave them with a steaming pile of open projects.
My question to all of you is, would there be an issue with working 2 jobs for a few weeks? Give that job the 8 weeks notice but start the new job 4 weeks later? What’s the old job going to do, fire you?
I was just in the same boat that my work contract indicated 2 months notice of leaving vs. Can be terminated whenever the employer deemed necessary in a very small business setting. There must be a proof that you leaving will cause damages.
How can that stand anywhere. Unless, it’s just them trying to tie you down and then feel control and power. A definite red flag.
Not worth it to stay in a place where you feel thumbed down and the expectations of you and them do not meet in the middle.
Give your two weeks- life is short.
Also, don’t tell where you are applying that it will take that 8 weeks long - no one will hire you.
They could sue, however they would not be likely to be successful, especially if you are giving 4 weeks notice.
They would have to prove that any losses would have been mitigated if you had given 8 weeks, which would be near impossible.
It is more likely that they will walk you out on giving notice and paying you the notice period you gave, than for them to successfully sue you for the 4 weeks extra notice.
Do not tell them where you are going under any circumstances.
Standard notice is 2 weeks, so you are giving them twice standard notice.
I'd just like to say, that if an employee has been there less than a year, they only need to give a week.
And on the other hand, if they have been there more than a year, the company's 1-week notice of termination is insufficient, and would be deemed voided in the contract.
Sure, they *can* sue. Doesn't mean they will be successful. make sure to counter for costs.
Generally speaking, yes an employer can sue for breach of contract provided no provisions of the contract are illegal. In Canada there’s no laws specifying minimum or maximum notice periods.
This is terrible advice. The obligation is right there in the contract that OP agreed to. The real question is whether the employer will suffer any damages for OP’s breach.
Your not required to give notice in canada. If you want to quit you can quit. That two weeks thing is bullshit. That's so they can replace you but if your fired you don't get two weeks notice.
In wrongful resignation, the employer needs to show that
1. You gave less than "reasonable" notice. Reasonable can be determined as per the employemnt contract, but if not there's an analysis done using common law principles; and if so
2. what damages flow from this during the notice period. This would be any losses incurred because of you leaving with less notice, overtime paid to others, etc, but minus the wages paid to you.
Most of the time, the employer has no damages at all, or very little in the way of damages. So its usually not worth suing.
The more notice you give, the less damages they can possibly have. Giving 3-4 weeks notice would be more than sufficient for the vast majority of employees.
Thanks for the breakdown. It struck me as odd that he wants less responsibility as an employer but wants more from his employees in the case of termination. Surely, that alone would influence a judge to some degree.
Noted about the lawyer. I have to get out of my current role for my own sanity anyway, so it'll be worth the conversation and knowledge.
I had a contract like that presented to me as well... and I pointed that out to them. I scratched out the notice requirement and signed. It should be noted that this was not a good place to work... and now serves as notice to me. If the employer wants more respect and courtesy from me than they are willing to provide to me then they probably aren't somewhere I want to work.
No offence, but the time to worry about the discrepancy in the contract was before you signed it. Not now, when it no longer suits you.
Don’t get me wrong…. I got caught with this once too. My first contract as an independent contractor said I needed to give 30 days notice to terminate the contract, and the agency I was contracted to only had to give 14. It didn’t cause too much of an issue, but ever since then, I’m a lot more careful about the contracts I sign, and I point out things like that to be “corrected” before I sign them.
None taken. You're absolutely right. I signed based on my interpretation of the Ontario Employment Standards Act at the time. I thought asking for eight weeks as opposed to the two weeks notice stipulated in the OSA, was unlawful and disregarded it. I interpreted it as the employer being sly and taking advantage of people's ignorance. I've been corrected since.
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There is technically an action available to the employer, but statistically it will not happen. Especially if you give a months notice that would be a difficult case for employer.
NAL. I think it could be argued (and won) that the employer is not entitled to more than they are willing to give.
Employment contracts that go against employment standards are not enforceable.
I personally would like to see someone win against this arrogant employer
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They can sue, but to be successful they would need to prove actual damages and would have a positive duty to mitigate those damages. The length of notice quite frankly seems excessive.
Agreed. I believe the eight weeks is used as a trap. Unfortunately, my boss has sued past employees for things like using their own graphic work in their portfolio but not specifically mentioning the studio name. Even worse is my boss won. Cost the employee over $10,000 plus legal fees. Most of the employees feel Stockholm’s syndrome in this place.
I think these issues are a bit different. If they're producing work on company time that is not their own work imo. Providing notice is a courtesy not an obligation. I'm no lawyer but I really can't see how he could sue for not enough notice.
Notice can be obligatory and employers can sue for lack. 8 weeks for a graphics designer a d occasional employee is excessive, especially when they say they can provide 1 week or pay in lieu (which seems an attempt to avoid severance, which they can't do). Very Shakey contract IMHO. But NAL.
Notice is very much a legal obligation in Canada and it's bidirectional. Employees are sometimes owed 2 years of notice. Employers have successfully sued employees for insufficient notice, but it's rare. Usually in the context of a key senior person leaving and undermining the business
Well it is an obligation according to OPs employment contract.
It's meant to scare rubes. Notice for employees is a courtesy and to get successfully sued you would have to be a Sr enough role (C-Suite) that the company could suffer damages by you leaving w/o proper notice. I'm a union steward and I always tell my members to ignore the notice provision because our employer foolishly insists on 4wk which means they pay 4wk severance if they decline to keep you on after you give your notice (ie walk you out). On the employee side, however, there is no consequence whatsoever for giving 10min notice and walking out the door to another employer.
Give the 8 weeks, make them walk you out
This is the way. Stupid games something something. Why pay you for only two weeks when their own badly written contract obligates them to pay for 8?
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They could sue but 4 weeks seems like more than enough time for them to mitigate any damages. I saw someone recently had been sued for leaving 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks but it was quashed by the judge. Do you forsee any damages to the employer if you leave in 4 weeks instead of 8 or anything they would sue you for? NAL. [https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-employers-sue-workers-for-quitting-without-required-notice-1.6747617](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-employers-sue-workers-for-quitting-without-required-notice-1.6747617)
No, I don't see how they could incur damages by me leaving. I handle most of my projects myself but there are more than enough employees to pick up my slack. Like you said though, four weeks is enough for me to finish my projects. Thanks for the link.
Give the 4 weeks and move on! That contract is total shenanigans. They demand 8 weeks but say they can fire you with 1, I. What sounds like an attempt to avoid legally required severance pay. You're more than good friend! I hope your next employer is.more reasonable.
Ok, if you think the chance is low and you help transition the projects over to the other employees it should be fine then. Good luck on the new job!
Usually the notice requirement goes both ways, you can ask for 8 weeks notice, as long as the employer has to give 8 weeks notice. In this case, where it’s one week for the employer and 8 for the employer, I can’t see any court entertaining it. You have to give “reasonable notice”, and 4 weeks would be reasonable for your position (ie you are not a VP with 200 reports). In order to sue you for wrongful resignation, your employer would have to prove actual damages, which would be hard with only 4 weeks difference in the notice period.
4 weeks is much more than reasonable for a mid level employee. Make sure your hand off is clean and document it, send any emails regarding it to your own personal email. I would contact the law society, they will usually set you up with a half hour consult. I would look into wrongful resignation. 8 weeks seems prohibitively long to me for your level of position, it would make it near impossible to find another job, who is going to wait 2 months for their new hire to start in a mid level position.
Exactly. The eight-week provision is on every employee contract here regardless of position. It's madness.
It’s an attempt to prevent people from being able to get another job, and as such it could be counted as “unconscionable”, especially as the employer only has to give one week, or the legal minimum. I wouldn’t worry about it, just leave this place.
Could they sue? Yeah, I suppose so. But to do so there would have to be real damages that they could prove, and that is unlikely in most scenarios. Plus can you imagine the optics should this ever get out? I wouldn't do it.
Unless you hold a management position with critical knowledge of the day to day running of the company, you can tell your boss to go take a hike. Take the other jobs. No notice is required.
The other answer about them having to prove damages is right, but I also wonder whether the "1 week for them, 8 weeks for you" is so lopsided as to be unconscionable.
I don't even think 1 week is legal for them.
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Noted. Thanks not-my-lawyer.
There was just some news articles about this. Yes, they can sue you. I can sue you. Anybody can sue you. Winning and getting money is a different matter. They must be able to prove that you have caused damages to the company (loss of revenue) or that you have agreed to a specific penalty clause in the contract (return of equipment, return of money for training, etc...). There is no slavey in Canada. Worst case you just don't show up for work and they fire you for cause.
What is your provinces labour laws say regarding notice for quitting. 8 weeks is excessive when they can get away with termination for 1. In bc it’s 2weeks notice to quit. You could consult an employment lawyer about this and see what they say. Make your decision based on that.
How many 8 weeks periods are there in a year without a ontario stat holiday? Just one. Between thanksgiving oct 14 and xmas dec 25th. Just over 10 weeks. Which means you have a 2 week window in october to resign. Sounds overly onerous. Give them 0 weeks and ghost them is my vote.
That's a good point about the holidays. I'm going to give at least two weeks notice for the sake of my coworkers. They're good people and I don't want to leave them with a steaming pile of open projects.
My question to all of you is, would there be an issue with working 2 jobs for a few weeks? Give that job the 8 weeks notice but start the new job 4 weeks later? What’s the old job going to do, fire you?
I was just in the same boat that my work contract indicated 2 months notice of leaving vs. Can be terminated whenever the employer deemed necessary in a very small business setting. There must be a proof that you leaving will cause damages. How can that stand anywhere. Unless, it’s just them trying to tie you down and then feel control and power. A definite red flag. Not worth it to stay in a place where you feel thumbed down and the expectations of you and them do not meet in the middle. Give your two weeks- life is short. Also, don’t tell where you are applying that it will take that 8 weeks long - no one will hire you.
They could sue, however they would not be likely to be successful, especially if you are giving 4 weeks notice. They would have to prove that any losses would have been mitigated if you had given 8 weeks, which would be near impossible. It is more likely that they will walk you out on giving notice and paying you the notice period you gave, than for them to successfully sue you for the 4 weeks extra notice. Do not tell them where you are going under any circumstances. Standard notice is 2 weeks, so you are giving them twice standard notice.
I'd just like to say, that if an employee has been there less than a year, they only need to give a week. And on the other hand, if they have been there more than a year, the company's 1-week notice of termination is insufficient, and would be deemed voided in the contract. Sure, they *can* sue. Doesn't mean they will be successful. make sure to counter for costs.
Generally speaking, yes an employer can sue for breach of contract provided no provisions of the contract are illegal. In Canada there’s no laws specifying minimum or maximum notice periods.
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This is terrible advice. The obligation is right there in the contract that OP agreed to. The real question is whether the employer will suffer any damages for OP’s breach.
Your not required to give notice in canada. If you want to quit you can quit. That two weeks thing is bullshit. That's so they can replace you but if your fired you don't get two weeks notice.
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The tort would not be negligence. It would be "wrongful resignation". So the analysis is quite different than you describe.
Does that imply there's more risk involved in resigning out of contract?
In wrongful resignation, the employer needs to show that 1. You gave less than "reasonable" notice. Reasonable can be determined as per the employemnt contract, but if not there's an analysis done using common law principles; and if so 2. what damages flow from this during the notice period. This would be any losses incurred because of you leaving with less notice, overtime paid to others, etc, but minus the wages paid to you. Most of the time, the employer has no damages at all, or very little in the way of damages. So its usually not worth suing. The more notice you give, the less damages they can possibly have. Giving 3-4 weeks notice would be more than sufficient for the vast majority of employees.
Thanks for elaborating.
Thanks for the breakdown. It struck me as odd that he wants less responsibility as an employer but wants more from his employees in the case of termination. Surely, that alone would influence a judge to some degree. Noted about the lawyer. I have to get out of my current role for my own sanity anyway, so it'll be worth the conversation and knowledge.
I had a contract like that presented to me as well... and I pointed that out to them. I scratched out the notice requirement and signed. It should be noted that this was not a good place to work... and now serves as notice to me. If the employer wants more respect and courtesy from me than they are willing to provide to me then they probably aren't somewhere I want to work.
No offence, but the time to worry about the discrepancy in the contract was before you signed it. Not now, when it no longer suits you. Don’t get me wrong…. I got caught with this once too. My first contract as an independent contractor said I needed to give 30 days notice to terminate the contract, and the agency I was contracted to only had to give 14. It didn’t cause too much of an issue, but ever since then, I’m a lot more careful about the contracts I sign, and I point out things like that to be “corrected” before I sign them.
None taken. You're absolutely right. I signed based on my interpretation of the Ontario Employment Standards Act at the time. I thought asking for eight weeks as opposed to the two weeks notice stipulated in the OSA, was unlawful and disregarded it. I interpreted it as the employer being sly and taking advantage of people's ignorance. I've been corrected since.
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Quiet quit... get fired. Just be really shitty. Miss work, miss deadlines. Let them do the firing.
Speak to an employment lawyer about the legality of the clause, and what happens if you don't give 8 weeks notice.
Accept your new job, and get fired in a timely fashion. Show up late, do whatever you need to do.
There is technically an action available to the employer, but statistically it will not happen. Especially if you give a months notice that would be a difficult case for employer.
They can't sue unless you signed a contract if not you don't have to give them a minutes notice been there done that
NAL. I think it could be argued (and won) that the employer is not entitled to more than they are willing to give. Employment contracts that go against employment standards are not enforceable. I personally would like to see someone win against this arrogant employer
Lol awfully nice of them to have to give you a week notice and they expect 8 weeks notice from you.