Williamson v Brandt Tractor Inc, 2026 ONCA 272– Case Summary
Facts and procedural history
The employee, William Williamson, was 56 years old and had worked for Brandt for 18 years as a salesperson covering a large northern Ontario territory. The trial judge recorded a mixed employment history: Williamson was a productive salesperson, but there had also been prior discipline, public complaints about his driving, a crash of the company truck, and at least one workplace injury during a product demonstration. On September 1, 2021, Brandt terminated him for cause, relying on his disciplinary record and an August 30, 2021 customer incident involving an attempted sale of equipment that was still in production and financing that had not yet been finalized. The parties agreed that the August incident, standing alone, would not justify dismissal; Brandt therefore invoked the cumulative-misconduct or “camel’s back” theory.
At trial, the central evidentiary problem was that the employer’s account of the August incident came through the manager’s email and testimony about what the customer had said. The trial judge found Williamson generally lacking in credibility, but still held that the employer had not proved misconduct warranting discipline because the customer’s version of events was hearsay and the customer had not been called to testify. The court awarded damages based on a 17-month notice period, declined to reduce the award on the basis of the employee’s lower-paying replacement job, and dismissed the punitive-damages claim. Brandt appealed on just cause and mitigation.
Issues, holdings, and disposition
The appeal raised three live issues. First, did the trial judge err in holding that the employer lacked just cause? The answer was no. Second, did the employee fail to mitigate by not pursuing comparable sales work? Again, no. Third, did the trial judge err in refusing to deduct income earned during the notice period because the replacement job was lower-paying or lower-ranking? Yes. On that point only, the appeal was allowed, and the damages award was reduced by $32,881.43. Otherwise, the appeal was dismissed.
Reasoning
On just cause, the Court of Appeal deferred heavily to the trial judge. At para 5, it held there was no extricable legal error and no palpable and overriding error in the conclusion that the employer had failed to prove a culminating incident sufficient to justify dismissal on a cumulative-misconduct theory. The trial reasons explain why: the manager’s note and telephone conversation with the customer established, at most, that the customer was upset and may have taken his business elsewhere; they did not prove the truth of the customer’s allegations that Williamson acted unprofessionally. In other words, the employer’s prior disciplinary record could matter only if the final incident itself was proved as misconduct, and it was not.
On mitigation, the Court of Appeal separated two distinct questions that the trial court had partially conflated. The first was whether Williamson failed to mitigate by not seeking comparable sales work. The Court of Appeal rejected that argument because the employer had not shown that such jobs were actually available and that reasonable efforts would have secured one. The second question was whether the wages Williamson actually earned in his replacement job had to be deducted. The Court of Appeal held that the governing rule is: employment income earned during the notice period is generally treated as mitigation of loss. The Court therefore held, at paras. 7-8, that there is “no authority” for a blanket rule exempting earnings from an inferior position, and it ordered the agreed deduction of $32,881.43.
Implications and open questions
For litigants and practitioners, the practical message is straightforward. In plain language: if an employee takes a lower-paying job after dismissal, those wages will usually reduce the wrongful dismissal award; taking a lesser job is not a way to preserve full damages. But employers still cannot win a mitigation argument merely by saying the employee “didn’t look hard enough”—they must prove comparable jobs were really out there. And if an employer wants to dismiss for cause based on a customer complaint, it should assume it will need admissible, first-hand proof of what the customer says happened.
*Always seek legal advice. The above is for information purposes only.
Stephen Dugandzic received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Alberta in 2013 and is Calgary-based. He previously practised with Bennett Jones LLP and Taylor Janis LLP before founding YYC Employment Law Group in 2018 and Evolution Legal in 2026.