Tevlin Gleadle Curtis Employment Law Strategies
We are a Vancouver law firm with a practice dedicated to all aspects of Employment Law.
Our lawyers have experience in the courtroom and at the negotiating table.
Tevlin Gleadle Curtis is the pre-eminent employment law firm in British Columbia. We provide advice and legal services to clients across Canada. The firm’s clients include employees, groups of employees, employers and contractors. Our clientele spans a diverse range of markets, economies and industries.
Employment Law Practice Areas
Our lawyers have substantial experience with all aspects of employment law. We routinely conduct wrongful dismissal claims, contract negotiations, and Human Rights complaints.
The Tevlin Gleadle Curtis team has extensive experience in trial and appeal courts in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Tevlin Gleadle Curtis lawyers have appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada in a number of important employment law cases including most recently in the case of Matthews and Ocean Nutrition.
We also have experience with administrative tribunals, mediation, arbitration, and other forms of dispute resolution.
For over a decade, we have been at the forefront of the unique and poorly-understood world of compensation issues relating to physicians who practice in a publicly-funded health care setting across multiple Canadian provinces.
Our practice also includes the conduct of workplace investigations.
Employment Law Strategies
Whether in court or in negotiation, we employ effective employment law strategies to achieve real results for our clients. People often comment to us that they want a ‘bulldog’ and they have heard that describes us well. We disagree. Tenacity is only one of the tools at our disposal, we only employ it when warranted. Many deals are done quickly, amicably and on the basis of our reputation as a leading firm in our practice area.
We also pride ourselves on creativity, and our peers recognize us for this attribute as well. You can count on us to take a holistic approach to your claim, always with a view to professionally and aggressively pursuing the best possible outcome that the circumstances of your case will allow.
Employment Law Services
Employment Law
The lawyers at our Vancouver office focus on issues affecting employers and employees.
Wrongful Dismissal
You've been fired. Was your termination lawful?
Constructive Dismissal
Your title, pay, reporting structure, or other aspect of your job has been changed. Is this constructive dismissal?
Human Rights
What do employers and employees have to be aware of when it comes to discrimination, bullying, or other workplace issues?
Class Actions
Class actions can be a powerful tool for dealing with employment issues.
Workplace Investigations
We have experience conducting comprehensive and efficient workplace investigations.
Physician Workplace Law
Physicians in Canada practice medicine within a complex framework of laws, regulations, bylaws, and professional and ethical requirements.
Other Employment Law Services
We advise employers and employees on matters including planning and negotiation, executive employment contracts, confidentiality and non-competition issues, shareholder disputes, mergers and acquisitions, and labour and employment injunctions.
Recent News
Fred Wynne overturns WorkSafe denial of compensation for bullying and harassment
TGC lawyer Fred Wynne successfully overturned a WorkSafe BC denial of compensation for a worker who had experienced persistent, low-level harassment in his workplace. You can read about the decision here. TGC lawyers have experience with WorkSafe issues. If you are an employer or employee dealing with a claim then you should contact us.
Fred Wynne appears in The Lawyer’s Weekly
TGC Lawyer Fred Wynne was quoted in an article on the Province’s response to COVID-19 that appeared in the October 22 edition of The Lawyer’s Weekly. In the article Fred talks about the challenges that workers are facing in the current economy. Fred is quoted as saying: “The legal definition of who is and who … Continued
WCAT Decision: D.N.
This is a case involving workplace bullying and harassment. TGC lawyer Fred Wynne, on behalf of the employee, successfully appealed WorkSafeBC’s denial of compensation for mental distress.
The Tribunal held the following:
Based on the worker’s unrefuted testimony, I find that he experienced a series of targeted events which constitute harassment in the workplace, which consisted of some events that on their own would be considered significant stressors, and others which would not stand on their own as significant stressors. However, notwithstanding that many of these events would not stand on their own as significant stressors, I find that the worker’s evidence established a pattern of seemingly benign or trivial individual events that when viewed as a whole consisted of harassment towards the worker.
Matthews v. Ocean Nutrition Canada Ltd., 2020 SCC 26
Courts should ask two questions when determining whether the appropriate quantum of damages for breach of an implied term to provide reasonable notice includes bonus payments. First, courts should consider the employee’s common law rights and examine whether, but for the termination, the employee would have been entitled to the bonus or benefit as part of their compensation during the reasonable notice period. Second, if so, courts should determine whether the terms of the employment contract or bonus plan unambiguously take away or limit that common law right.
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…this Court has been emphatic in recognizing that, in addition to whatever financial dimension work entails, a person’s employment is “an essential component of [their] sense of identity, self-worth and emotional well-being” (Reference re Public Service Employee Relations Act (Alta.), 1987 CanLII 88 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 313, at p. 368). To this end, it is understandable that employees seek some recognition that they have been mistreated, reflecting that they feel it unfair, beyond any compensatory matter, that they were forced to quit in such circumstances.