Severance When You Are Fired Near Retirement in Canada
Age and difficulty finding comparable work can lengthen common-law notice, but planned retirement is not a separate head of wrongful-dismissal damages.
Being fired shortly before retirement does not create a special Canadian severance formula. In common-law wrongful-dismissal cases, age can be an important factor in reasonable notice because it can make comparable employment harder to obtain, but courts do not simply award the employee the income they expected to earn until a planned retirement date. Ontario's Court of Appeal decisions in Dawe v. Equitable Life and Currie v. Nylene Canada show both sides of that distinction. Common-law reasonable notice is intended to compensate for the employer's failure to give lawful notice of termination.
Opening this article…