How Do Employers Know if You Were Fired
Yep, if you were fired, your employer is free to say yous were fired.
Withal, if y'all were terminated without crusade for no real reason or business reasons similar downsizing, then your employer can't tell that or imply that you were fired for cause for serious misconduct, otherwise it would exist defamation.
Accordingly, unless your employer is lying most your reason for termination, i.due east., defaming you somehow, it can say whatever information technology wants about your exit. Your employer tin lawfully tell your current colleagues and your future employers that it fired you.
Keep in mind withal that there is no "record" once yous modify employers and most employers will never know you were fired or why you were fired (if you were fired). Typically, an employer volition merely ever discover out you were fired (if you were fired) if you volunteer a reference from your one-time employer to your new employer that will tell them you were fired. So just don't tell them or don't requite them a reference that will tell them if you are worried. You have no obligation to disclose that you were fired unless you are explicitly asked, which is rare.
Defamation And Terminations
In Canada, we accept two kinds of terminations: terminations for cause and terminations without cause.
For crusade terminations are exceedingly rare and are generally simply reserved for serious workplace misconduct like deceit, theft and gross incompetence.
On the reverse, without cause terminations are the norm by far and comprehend the vast majority of terminations.
Equally a result, someone terminated for cause is a serious affair which implies their character is lacking. Conversely, whenever someone is fired without crusade, their character is never really tarnished.
This is all to say that simply, employers cannot lie most your graphic symbol being lacking. In other words, employers cannot lie and say you were terminated for serious misconduct for cause when you were really fired without crusade or for crusade but without any reasonable proof of such alleged cause.
Lying about the character of an employee is defamation, and that is illegal.
What is defamation? More often than not, defamation is saying something almost another person that lowers the reputation of that person in the eyes of a reasonable person: Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, [2009] three S.C.R. 640, at para. 28.
In the workplace law sphere, it is defamatory to say or propose that an employee has been guilty of dishonest or disreputable deport.
Still, as hinted to above, employers take a defence to defamation if what they are saying or suggesting nigh someone is true. To that end, if an employer fires someone for cause, for theft for example, and so the employer has an accented defence to claims of defamation brought by the employee if the employee actually stole something and was fired for it.
Appropriately, if an employer says an employee was fired for serious misconduct similar theft, merely that is false or misleading or impossible to show, so the employer has no defence to defamation and would be liable to pay the employee damages. This raises a more than mutual upshot of when an employer suspects an employee did something wrong just cannot show it or does not reasonably try and prove it, and fires them for it for cause, and and so tells future employers about information technology. This could be defamation because the employer cannot rely on the "truth" defamation defence.
To be clear, If an employer suspects an employee did something very incorrect but does not investigate information technology properly, it is non "truthful" to say that the employee surely did that very bad affair. Therefore, it is defamation if the employer goes around telling others that the employee did that allegedly very bad affair. The employee'south character will have been defamed and he or she volition exist able to sue his or her employer successfully because the employer will have no defense force.
For instance, in one example in Ontario, Hampton Securities Limited v. Dean, 2018 ONSC 101 (CanLII), an employee successfully sued her employer for defamation when the employer declared to a third political party (her securities regulator) that she was dismissed for crusade for "failing to follow trading desk policies & procedures – unauthorized trading resulting in losses." In other words, the employer implied the employee was guilty of very serious, career-ending misconduct in reference to her function every bit a registered securities broker.
The employer's statement was per se defamatory, impugning the very character of the employee in regard to her chosen profession, and the employer in fact admitted the comments were defamatory at trial. However, as is the case in most other matters, the employer tried to rely on the absolute defence of truth. In other words, the employer argued that yes what information technology said was hurtful to the employee's grapheme, but that it was the truth, so it was allowed to say it.
Yet, it turned out that the employer did not even have any evidence that the employee actually conducted unauthorized trading, so the truth defence failed, and the judge strongly sided with the employee, going so far equally to award boggling damages confronting it:
[196] Punitive damages are the exception rather than the norm. This is an exceptional case….[197] Hampton filed a Not containing allegations that go to the heart of a trader'southward integrity: the duty to exercise the power to merchandise strictly inside the authority they are given. Hampton knew the allegations would exist bachelor to all potential employers of Ms. Dean. Hampton made the allegations when it knew or ought to have known they were untrue. Hampton knew or ought to take known that the allegations were fatal to the prospect of Ms. Dean obtaining futurity employment in the securities industry in a position involving any cloth degree of discretion, independence or responsibility….[203] This is the infrequent sort of case in which courts should award castigating damages. For an employer to conduct itself in this way is, in my view, so "farthermost in its nature and such that past any reasonable standard information technology is deserving of full condemnation and punishment"…
Conclusion: What Employers Tin And Cannot Say Nearly Terminations
In summary, employers tin tell other people anything about an employee's termination so long as it is true. Employers are forbidden from lying well-nigh the reason for termination and they are forbidden from implying someone was terminated for serious misconduct if they failed to investigate that it was fifty-fifty true that the misconduct occurred. Thus, if an employer always wants to tell a third political party anything that could injure an employee's character, it had better make sure it is true and even collect evidence to prove it is true in instance information technology is e'er sued.
Dutton Employment Law represents employees and employers in Ontario employment police force matters. Telephone call us for a gratuitous consultation to hash out your matter.
Jeff is an employment lawyer in Toronto. He is the Main of the Dutton Employment Law Group at Monkhouse Constabulary. Jeff is a frequent lecturer on employment law and is the writer of an employment law textbook and various merchandise journal articles.
Source: https://duttonlaw.ca/can-your-employer-say-you-were-fired/
0 Response to "How Do Employers Know if You Were Fired"
Post a Comment