The world of the contract lawyer should never be immune from the press for efficiency; the reliable, predictable and confidently reproducible contract in standard form is the one-size solution to fit most client needs.
It is time to revisit the topic of Host Liability and what an employer can do to ensure the holiday party is the social event of the year and not a litigation nightmare.
There is another court decision out of the well-known tragedy in Toronto involving five workers who fell from the thirteenth floor of a high-rise building on December 24, 2009. The men’s duties on the date of the accident included pouring concrete on balconies they were using a swing stage to access.
The Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety regime is undergoing a complete overhaul, with potential huge impacts for employers respecting cost of compliance and risk of liability. The changes are part of the five-year Workplace Safety Strategy, a joint initiative between the Department of Labour and Advanced Education and the Workers’ Compensation Board. The Strategy was developed in direct response to a recognition that the old system—a piecemeal assortment of rules and regulations—was tough to navigate and produced inconsistency in interpretation and enforcement.
One of the questions at the forefront of many employers’ minds when they are considering terminating an employee without cause is how much it is going to cost. Unless there is a written employment contract with an express termination clause, an employer’s obligation is to provide reasonable notice of termination.