Employee assumed contract limiting notice to legislative minimum wouldn't hold up but didn't seek legal advice before signing it
A British Columbia employer only needs to pay the minimum notice for dismissal as specified in an employee’s contract, the B.C. Provincial Court has ruled.
Amanda van’t Slot, 39, was hired in April 2004 by Oncogenex Technologies, a pharmaceutical company in Vancouver, to be a clinical and regulatory affairs co-ordinator. When she was offered the position, Oncogenex sent her an offer of employment that indicated all employees must sign an employment contract.
On her first day of work, van’t Slot received the employment agreement during her orientation. She was given an opportunity to ask questions but declined and took it home to read. The agreement included a termination provision that stipulated she would receive the minimum notice required by the B.C. Employment Standards Act if she was terminated without cause.
The new employee brought the employment agreement back to work on her second day and signed it. She read the termination provision but assumed it referred to a minimum requirement she would receive and she could get more. However, she didn’t receive any legal advice as she was eager to start her job.
On July 1, 2008, van’t Slot went on a one-year maternity leave. In August 2008, while she was away, Oncogenex merged with another pharmaceutical company based in the United States. Soon after, it decided to discontinue clinical research operations in B.C. and eliminated the Vancouver department through attrition.
Though van’t Slot’s position was eliminated, management hoped to find another job for her with Oncogenex by the time she finished her maternity leave. However, it was unable to do so and her employment was terminated at the end of her leave on July 2, 2009. Because the company considered her a good employee, it wanted to give her a “soft landing” and offered her an extra five weeks’ pay on top of the minimum notice allowed in the legislation.
However, van’t Slot filed a claim for wrongful dismissal, arguing as a good employee with five years of service, she was entitled to a greater notice period than the legislative minimum. She argued the termination provision wasn’t clear enough in specifying no common law notice applied because it didn’t have the word “only” before discussing her entitlement to the legislative minimum and did not say the minimum was the only notice to which she was entitled.
The court found the termination provision in the employment agreement was not ambiguous. Though it didn’t contain the word “only,” the statement “the employee shall be entitled to notice or severance payments to the employee as required pursuant to the provisions of the Employment Standards Act” was clear in its limitation. No reference to common law notice was necessary, said the court.
“Although (van’t Slot) did not understand the import of the termination provision at the time she signed the employment agreement, she had the opportunity to consider the agreement, ask questions and obtain legal advice had she chosen to do so,” said the court.
