A dismissal can generate years of correspondence, arguments about fairness and carefully kept records. None of those things necessarily answers the question the next court will be asked to decide. During the week of October 5, 2026, two western Canadian decisions illustrated how disputes about employment can be shaped by procedural issues before the underlying merits are resolved. The cases involved different questions and different stages of litigation. Reading them together doesn't produce a new formula for dismissal disputes. It exposes a risk that can be hidden beneath even an apparently complete employment file. In Xue v Nexen Energy ULC , 2026 ABCA 321, released October 9, the Alberta Court of Appeal dealt with an application to extend the time for an appeal. The claimant said he had been dismissed in 2017. A lawsuit brought years later had already encountered a limitation problem. After his subsequent action was dismissed as out of time, he missed the deadline to appeal that ruling as well.
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