In a recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Phanlouvong v.Northfield Metal Products , 2014 ONSC 6585, the court held that an employee who punched another employee in the face after feeling disrespected by them was terminated without cause and was awarded 15 months' notice.
In the case, the plaintiff had testified to punching a fellow employee after the other employee bumped into him and refused to apologize. The plaintiff felt that the failure to apologize was disrespectful and an argument ensued ending with the plaintiff punching the other employee in the face. The employer, Northfield Metal Products, has a progressive discipline policy in place to address any incidents of workplace violence, but this incident was seen by the employer as being beyond reasonable and the plaintiff was terminated with cause and without notice. The employee had been at Northfield Metal Products for 16 years and had no other incidents of violence or other types of serious reprimands in his file.
The Court held that the termination was without cause as the employer failed to implement its progressive discipline policy to address its concerns with the plaintiff. While the Court agreed that the incident of violence was worthy of sanction by the employer, in light of their specific policy to address such incidents and the failure of the employer to rely on such policy, termination of employment was deemed too harsh a punishment for the isolated incident.
The Court, in looking at the plaintiff's length of service, their age and other common law factors, and noting that this particular violence was an isolated incident, stated that proper notice under the circumstances would have been 15 months.
While termination of employment for cause for such an incident of workplace violence would clearly be justified in most circumstances, the Court appears to have put great weight on the progressive discipline policy that was in place but not used by the employer. It would be interesting to see if the result would have been similar in circumstances where there was no specific policy in place. Although the case is demonstrative of the difficulties faced by employers in attempting to establish just cause, it also shows that if there is a policy in place to address an issue in the workplace before termination becomes an option, that policy must be utilized by the employer and termination should be deemed a last resort in any circumstance.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
