Former account manager argued he was owed four weeks’ termination pay and years of unpaid commissions, but Alberta board disagreed
Alberta’s Employment Standards appeals body has upheld an officer’s order granting two weeks’ termination pay and no unpaid commissions to a former account manager at Landale Signs, dismissing the worker’s bid for more compensation.
In reasons issued March 26, 2026, vice‑chair Pemme Cunliffe dismissed an appeal by the account manager, who challenged a Jan. 8, 2024 officer’s order directing his former employer to pay $2,769 in termination pay and a $276 fee, for a total of $3,046.
“Specifically, the appellant argues the officer erred in awarding him two weeks of termination pay rather than four and the order should have included compensation for unpaid commissions,” the decision states.
Resolving those issues required determining how long the account manager was employed by the employer, what his commission structure was at the time of termination, and whether he earned commissions that were not paid, said the appeals board.
Text message ends employment
The account manager’s employment ended on May 19, 2023, “when he was told by text message the employer was closing its operations immediately.” He filed an Employment Standards complaint shortly afterward.
The appeal proceeded as a de novo hearing under s. 95(2)(b) of the Employment Standards Code. As the decision notes, in such hearings “what happened before is essentially irrelevant” and the appeal body “bases the appeal decision on the evidence and material provided at the Appeal Hearing.”
“For the reasons that follow, the Appeal Body dismisses the appeal,” Cunliffe wrote.
One week decides termination‑pay entitlement
The central dispute on termination pay was whether the account manager had reached four full years of service. Under s. 56(c) of the Code, he would be entitled to four weeks’ termination pay if he was employed “for four years or more, but less than six years.”
The timeline was close. The parties agreed he was continuously employed from 2019 to 2023 despite corporate transfers among related entities. The question was his actual start date.
The account manager testified that his first day was May 13, 2019. But Landale’s director at the time of termination testified that his first day was May 21, 2019, noting that the May 20 start date handwritten into his initial offer letter was a holiday.
Their versions “only differ by about a week, [but] that week is significant,” the decision observes. If the director was correct and employment began on May 21, 2019, the account manager “would not have worked four full years at the time of his termination on May 19, 2023.” If the May 13 date were accepted, he would have passed the four‑year mark.
Credibility framework applied
Applying the credibility framework from Faryna v. Chorney, the appeal body found the “contextual evidence overwhelmingly supports the respondent’s recollection that the appellant’s employment started on May 21, 2019.”
Three factors were key:
First, pay records in the 197‑page book of documents showed the account manager “was only paid for 32 hours during the two‑week pay period starting on May 12 and ending on May 25,” consistent with “four 8‑hour days between Tuesday, May 21 and Friday, May 24 inclusive.”
Second, the explanation that May 20 was simply the date he returned to the office to revise his offer letter was hard to square with the calendar. “May 20, 2019, was Victoria Day,” the decision notes, adding that the director’s evidence was that the business was closed and that the 32 hours of pay suggested the company “only operated four days that week.”
Third, the account manager’s own complaint form undercut his recollection on appeal: “The appellant’s original complaint form indicates that his employment began on May 20, 2019 and ended on May 19, 2023. On appeal, he claimed he began full time work on May 13, 2019. This inconsistency casts doubt on the accuracy of his recollection.”
The appeal body ultimately found that the account manager “was employed from May 21, 2019 to May 19, 2023, which is slightly under four years.” While acknowledging it was “unfortunate,” Cunliffe held that “section 56 of the Code is clear that an employee who is employed for two years or more but less than four is only entitled to two weeks of termination pay.”
The termination‑pay appeal was dismissed.
Two offer letters cover commissions
The account manager also argued he was owed unpaid commissions and that his original commission structure under a 2019 offer letter should govern. That letter promised a bi‑weekly base of $2,769 plus a 4% commission on sales, with a potential annual bonus if his total pay fell below what he would have earned under “current regular commission rates.”
In mid‑2020, after the director acquired the business, the employer introduced a revised compensation scheme through a “Second Offer Letter.” It reduced commission to “2% for orders sold at book value and 1% for items sold at 90‑99% of book value,” eliminated commission on some lower‑margin jobs, and added a suspension mechanism if base pay and commissions exceeded regular commission rates by more than $25,000. Under that clause, commissions “would be suspended until the deficit was reduced to less than $25,000 and all other performance expectations were met.”
The account manager never signed the Second Offer Letter, and he objected in a series of emails, arguing that “the terms of the First Offer Letter should govern his employment unless he agreed to revisions.” He stopped receiving commissions after March 5, 2021, and acknowledged that, under s. 90 of the Code, he could only claim commissions earned in the last six months of employment.
Brown testified that commissions ceased because they were “suspended in accordance with the terms of the Second Offer Letter and not because the respondent implemented any changes to the commission structure in February 2021 or failed to pay the commissions the Appellant was owed.”
Second offer letter stands
The appeal body accepted that, “at least for the purposes of the Code, the Second Offer Letter governed the appellant’s compensation from late 2020 onwards.” While the account manager argued there was no valid change without his consent, Cunliffe emphasized that in an employment standards complaint “the appellant can only enforce his entitlements under the Code and not general principles of contract law.”
“The Code did not require the respondent to secure the appellant’s consent before reducing his compensation,” the decision states, noting that s. 13 requires notice of a reduction but that any notice issue here fell outside the six‑month assessment period and could not result in a remedy.
The key question, then, was whether the employer had in fact changed the compensation structure around late 2020. The appeal body found it had: the Second Offer Letter said, “You will be bound to the following terms,” and commission records showed that “by October of 2020 the Appellant’s commissions were calculated in accordance with the 1‑2% structure.”
The account manager’s own efforts to challenge the change in October and November 2020 “demonstrate the commission structure did in fact change around that time, at least in practice.” Whatever remedies might have existed then “cannot be enforced through an employment standards complaint filed after two and a half years working under the changed conditions of employment,” said the decision.
Total comp exceeded regular rates
On the merits of unpaid commissions within the six‑month window, the numbers were against him. Records showed that as of the pay period ending March 5, 2021, his total compensation already exceeded what he would have earned at regular commission rates “by $86,793.72, well over the $25,000 amount that would trigger a suspension.” A later record for Dec. 23, 2022 showed the deficit had grown to $133,873.53, and by his final pay period it was $150,383.37.
“The information provided strongly suggests a deficit larger than the $25,000 suspension threshold at all material times,” the decision concludes. Given that finding and the application of the Second Offer Letter, the account manager “has failed to establish that he was owed commissions earned during the Assessment Period. His commission pay was validly suspended during that time.”
The commission portion of the appeal was therefore dismissed.
“For the reasons set out above, the Appeal Body dismisses the appeal and confirms the Order,” Cunliffe wrote, adding that “it is clear [the parties] had different recollections of what occurred, therefore the Appeal Body found it necessary to rely on the objective evidence.”
