Carlton Cards, Papyrus Stores Closing – Severance Rights

The company that owns Carlton Cards and Papyrus is closing all of its stores in North America, including 76 Canadian locations.

Schurman Retail Group CEO Dominique Schurman told both Global News and CTV News that many of the closures will occur within the next four to six week period. The company is retaining a liquidation firm to help with the going-out-of-business sales.

In the United States, 178 locations face closure, bringing the North American total to 254 stores, affecting 1,400 employees.

Schurman said that the shuttering of stores was due to an inability to “realign our stores to fit today’s shopping environment.”

Severance Pay for Carlton Cards, Papyrus Employees

When a company shuts its doors and wraps up business operations, it must observe standard protocol where severance pay is concerned. That is, all employees must receive full common law severance pay, according to numerous factors. Those factors include the employee’s age, length of service at the company, position, salary, and ability to find new employment.

Employees at Carlton Cards and Papyrus locations in Canada should therefore expect to receive a severance package from Schurman Retail Group. Those severance packages should incorporate the above severance pay calculations. Their employment has been terminated without cause, which qualifies them for severance pay in Canada.

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• Carlton Cards severance packages

If Carlton Cards and Papyrus fail to provide severance, or provide an inappropriate amount of severance, employees can file for wrongful dismissal, and contact a wrongful dismissal lawyer at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP for assistance.

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Don’t Sign Those Termination Papers!

If you are an employee at Carlton Cards or Papyrus, and are staring at termination papers, exit letter or severance package, DO NOT SIGN until you speak to an employment lawyer first!

Once you sign a severance offer, you waive your right to pursue full severance pay. In most termination situations, employers do not offer adequate severance pay. They will also apply a deadline of a few days to a severance offer. The company’s hope is that confusion and pressure will force you to accept a poor severance package.

Employment Contracts and Severance Pay

An employment contract may impact the size of your severance package. Employment contracts often contain a termination clause that seeks to limit the amount of pay you can receive up on termination. Often times, those clauses are poorly written, meaning that they do not rob your rights to full severance.

Working Notice and Severance Pay

It appears that Carlton Cards and Papyrus employees have been given working notice. That is, they have been told when they will be let go from their job, weeks ahead of the termination date.

Instead of firing an employee and handing them a severance package, an employer reserves the right to set a future termination date for an employee instead. The advance notice of termination replaces severance pay. However, employers often fail to provide an employee with the appropriate amount of working notice. The working notice given to an employee usually only represents a small portion of the full severance amount they are owed.

An employee at one of the stores may have been given 6 weeks of working notice, but is looking at a 12 month severance package based on their age, years of work and position. Therefore, the employer still owes the employee 46 weeks, or 10 – 11 months of severance.