Long-service employee has severance reduced by court in B.C

A B.C long-service employee recently had her severance payments reduced due to a failure to look for new employment. Okano worked for an airline and initially argued she was owed a restoration of wages as well as over 2 years’ worth of payment in lieu of notice.

A Vancouver employment lawyer and Associate at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke to Sarah Dobson at HR Reporter about Okano’s reasoning behind not looking for future employment.

The lawyer states Okano was traumatized by her experience with the airline industry. “The court disagreed with that because the court was like, ‘Well, no, you do have a duty to mitigate, and part of that includes looking for alternate and comparable jobs.”

“Had she been able to look in both the airline industry and other industries for a middle-manager position, her duty to mitigate would have been met much quicker,” The Samfiru Tumarkin LLP associate explains.

The lawyer goes on to reiterate that it is important for clients to document their job searches. “There are other ways to document those job search efforts; for example… Indeed automatically generates the history of the jobs that you’ve applied for. A lot of the time, that’s a major factor in helping employers put forth a settlement amount, and it is a big piece of evidence in wrongful dismissal suits in determining the amount of severance and damages to award.”

In order to entice former employees to accept a severance package, the employment lawyer states that employers will offer outplacement support.

“Not only is it a nice gesture, it actually could help you prevent a wrongful dismissal claim because, in effect, you’re helping them with the duty to mitigate and the sooner that your employee who’s terminated finds a new job, and the quicker that they move on, the less that the employer would be on the hook for severance.”