Class action settled after allegations company failed to properly administer pregnancy, maternity and parental leaves
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has approved an $826,836 settlement in a class action alleging that Enbridge failed to properly administer paperwork for statutory pregnancy, maternity and parental leaves.
The claim, first filed in 2021, alleged that Enbridge violated section 51(3) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, which requires employers to continue making pension contributions during an employee's statutory leave unless the employee provides written notice of an intention not to contribute.
The affected period for the Enbridge Gas Inc. plan runs from 1990.
Plaintiff Susan Williams, who took two parental leaves during her time at Enbridge, described in her affidavit how the issue came to light: "Nobody from Enbridge ever spoke to me about how my parental leaves might affect my pension benefits. I never signed any documents or received any documents relating to pension issues during my parental leaves as far as I can recall."
Williams was terminated by Enbridge Gas Inc. in March 2019 and had originally pursued her pension claim as part of a personal wrongful dismissal action. She later chose to spin the pension issue into a separate class action after realizing the problem may have been widespread.
"I decided that I could not just pursue this pension issue for myself alone. I was a leader and manager when employed at Enbridge. I was sure many women employed there or who had worked there, women who I had worked closely with and whose families I knew, had been detrimentally impacted and did not know it or were powerless to do anything about it."
‘Credited service’ for employees
Under the Enbridge pension plans, retirement benefits were tied to an employee's accumulated "Credited Service." If an employee failed to accrue credited service during a statutory leave, their eventual pension payments would be permanently lower — a reduction that would only become apparent years or decades later, upon retirement or withdrawal from the plan.
The evidence before the court revealed an inconsistent and at times incomplete process for handling the paperwork that governed those leaves. Under section 51(3) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, Enbridge was required to continue making pension contributions during a statutory leave unless the employee provided written notice that she did not intend to pay her own contributions.
The court heard that Enbridge had a form for this purpose — but the evidence showed it was not applied uniformly. Some employees were sent the form and did not respond; others had a note added to their pension file by a manager but never completed the form themselves. Others, like Williams, stated they received no documents relating to pension matters during their leaves at all.
Because the law required a written notice from the employee to relieve Enbridge of its contribution obligation, the absence of that notice — however it came about — meant the employer's legal duty remained in place.
Pension settlement at Enbridge
The settlement, executed on Dec. 22, 2025, covers 223 "Settlement Class Members" — current and former Enbridge employees who took a statutory leave during the affected period, were members of one or both Enbridge pension plans, and did not accrue credited service during their leave. A further 62 class members whose claims will be dismissed under the agreement did not opt out or object.
The court noted the settlement achieves a recovery rate of 75% of total losses, with the 25% discount reflecting litigation risks including potential limitations defences and the possibility that the class would not be certified.
In the June 4, 2026 decision Williams v. Enbridge Gas Inc., Justice Benjamin Glustein found the settlement "falls within the zone of reasonableness."
A notable feature of the settlement is that Enbridge itself — rather than a third-party administrator — will administer the claims process, avoiding what the court described as "a sizable administrative cost (sometimes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense)." Any unclaimed funds will be paid on a cy près basis to the Canadian Women's Foundation.
Class counsel Cavalluzzo was approved to receive $301,575 in total fees, disbursements and HST — representing 30% of the settlement sum under a contingency fee retainer, plus roughly $21,278 in disbursements. The court noted that this amount is less than the docketed time value of over $326,993 incurred by counsel across more than 500 hours of work over six years.
