You’ll see plenty written about this decision so I won’t go into any redundant detail.

To put it bluntly, the Keays decision surprises me. Employers may call this decision a victory, but quite frankly, I don’t know of too many employment counsel that would advise their client’s to behave in the manner that Honda did. Aside from what any Court had to say about Honda’s conduct, to put it in the vernacular, “it just ain’t right Ma.” Employers don’t do themselves any favours by being aggressive with an employee. Ever.

Just remember that your other employees will judge you in part on how dismissals are handled. A poorly handled dismissal will likely affect the rest of your workforce in an appreciably negative manner.

The decision itself doesn’t really speak to any technically interesting matters. It basically gives employer’s latitude to be aggressive with employees during the termination process. The one technically interesting issue is the matter of the Court’s jurisdiction to look at aspects of a human rights violation in assessing damages. That is now out, and cuts off what appeared to be an interesting trend that was developing in several Provinces.