Calgary Employment Case Studies

Confidential Client: Our client came to us after being terminated for alleged just cause.

We challenged the employer’s reliance on cumulative cause, including the adequacy of the progressive discipline process and whether the circumstances justified termination without notice. The matter was ultimately resolved on a without cause basis.

Win #1: The just cause position did not stand.

But that was only the first issue.

Our client’s employment agreement also contained a termination provision that purported to limit their entitlement on a without cause termination to the minimum requirements of the Alberta Employment Standards Code.

We challenged the enforceability of that provision and advanced our client’s entitlement to common law reasonable notice.

Win #2: Our client’s common law severance entitlement was preserved.

There was one more challenge: our client was a relatively short-service employee.

We relied on the principles applicable to reasonable notice, including the significant notice periods that can sometimes be awarded to short-service employees, and negotiated a meaningful severance package despite the relatively brief period of employment.

Win #3: A strong severance result for a short-service employee.

Just cause is a serious allegation and a high threshold for an employer to establish. The surrounding circumstances matter, including the seriousness of the alleged misconduct, the employee’s disciplinary history, the employer’s investigation and response, and whether termination is proportionate.

Employment agreements matter, too. A contractual termination provision can displace common law reasonable notice only where it is legally enforceable.

This case required us to address both issues and protect our client’s rights on each.

Confidential Client:  Our client had worked for a large Calgary company for less than 1.5 years.

When the company offered less than one month’s salary to end the employment relationship, it appeared they expected our client to simply accept it and move on.

We didn’t.

Through focused advocacy on the legal implications of short-service employment, we negotiated a settlement worth five times the employer’s initial offer—an overall amount equivalent to an impressive 1.83 months of compensation for every year of service.

“Rule of thumb”? Think again.

The law is evolving. Courts across Canada, including in Alberta, are increasingly recognizing that employees with relatively short periods of service may be entitled to significantly more notice and severance than traditional rules of thumb might suggest.

Our client avoided litigation and walked away with a settlement five times greater than the company’s original offer.

A fivefold return without going to court. Now that’s a return on investment.

Confidential Client: Our client was a professional employed by a large Calgary-based employer. After approximately two years of service, they were terminated without cause and without notice.

The employer’s initial severance offer? Just 1.38 months’ pay in lieu of notice.

We believed that was too low.

Our advocacy focused on an important and developing principle in wrongful dismissal law: short-service employees can be entitled to disproportionately longer notice periods, particularly where the circumstances support a more generous award.

The result?

We increased our client’s severance to a global amount equivalent to 4.2 months of salary—approximately 1.93 months of compensation for every year of service.

Put another way, we more than quadrupled the employer’s initial severance offer, while keeping our client’s legal costs to a minimum.

No litigation. No lengthy court process. No unnecessary expense.

Just a substantially improved result that appropriately reflected our client’s legal entitlement.

Short service does not necessarily mean short notice. By applying a detailed understanding of the evolving law of reasonable notice, we were able to hold the employer accountable and achieve an excellent outcome for our client.

A quadruple win.

Confidential Client: Our client was preparing to return to work following a protected leave, only to discover that the position they had held had been given to someone else in their absence. Even before the leave had officially ended, the employer had effectively told our client to start looking for another job.

The circumstances were significant and, in our view, potentially engaged important protections under human rights law.

We believed the employer’s proposed resolution failed to adequately account for the circumstances surrounding the end of our client’s employment and the potential human rights implications.

We advocated for more.

In less than a month, we negotiated a substantially enhanced settlement for our client while keeping legal costs to an absolute minimum and avoiding litigation.

Protected leaves are protected for a reason. When an employer interferes with an employee’s return to work in circumstances that engage human rights protections, the consequences can extend well beyond ordinary severance.

We make sure our clients’ human rights are valued accordingly

Confidential Client: Our client was a non-management, short-service employee at a well known Calgary company. After less than a year of service, they were terminated without cause.

The employment agreement contained an otherwise valid termination clause limiting our client to just two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. To achieve a better result, we needed to establish why the employer should not be permitted to rely on that contractual limitation.

We found the answer in repudiation.

Repudiation occurs where a party breaches a sufficiently important term of a contract in a manner amounting to a “substantial failure of performance”. Where an employer repudiates an employment agreement, it may lose the ability to rely on contractual provisions that would otherwise limit an employee’s termination entitlements.

Our review identified evidence that the employer had failed to comply with the very termination clause it sought to enforce. We argued that having failed to honour its own contractual obligations, the employer could not then rely on the agreement to restrict our client to the amounts set out in that clause. If the contractual limitation fell away, our client’s common law notice entitlements applied instead.

The result? We nearly tripled our client’s severance and negotiated an amount equivalent to approximately 1.5 months of pay per year of service.

The difference between contractual entitlements and common law notice can be significant. By identifying the employer’s own failure to comply with the termination clause and advancing a focused repudiation argument, we turned a two week entitlement into a substantially better result.

The contract said two weeks. We found the way through it. Our client walked away with nearly three times more.

Confidential Client: Our client was a senior professional whose compensation included a significant incentive component. After being terminated without cause, the employment documents appeared to present two major obstacles.

First, the employment agreement purported to limit our client’s termination entitlements to the minimum requirements of Alberta employment standards legislation.

Second, the applicable incentive plan purported to restrict our client’s entitlement to incentive compensation following termination.

Taken together, those provisions had the potential to significantly reduce our client’s severance.

We challenged both.

We identified serious enforceability concerns with the termination provision and demonstrated why the incentive plan language did not clearly remove our client’s entitlement to compensation that would otherwise have been earned during the applicable notice period.

The result was a substantially enhanced severance package that recognized the value of both our client’s compensation and their broader termination entitlements.

The contract is not always the end of the analysis.

An employment agreement can limit common law reasonable notice only where the limiting language is legally enforceable. And where incentive compensation forms part of an employee’s remuneration, excluding it from wrongful dismissal damages generally requires clear contractual language that applies to the circumstances of the termination.

For employees with significant bonuses, commissions, equity or other incentive compensation, those issues can dramatically affect the value of a severance package.

We looked beyond the initial offer, challenged the contractual limitations, and protected the value of our client’s termination entitlements.

Confidential Client: What happens when a long-serving professional is terminated without cause and the employer’s severance offer falls short?

We push for more.

Our client had devoted many years to their employer before their position was eliminated. Despite that lengthy service, the severance initially offered did not properly reflect their common law entitlement.

We conducted a detailed assessment of the circumstances, identified the weaknesses in the employer’s position, and advocated for a substantially better result.

In less than two months, we nearly doubled our client’s severance package, including an allocation to general damages that reflected the circumstances surrounding the termination.

We achieved that result without litigation and while keeping our client’s legal costs to a minimum.

An employer’s first severance offer is not necessarily the measure of what an employee may be legally entitled to receive.

At Evolution Legal, we look beyond the initial offer. We assess the circumstances, apply a deep understanding of Alberta employment law, and advocate for the compensation our clients are entitled to pursue.

The first offer was not enough. We made sure the final result was better.

Confidential Client: Our client was a C-Suite executive at a well-known Canadian employer. After six years of service, they were let go without cause during a corporate restructuring.

Their contract appeared to limit them to the legal minimum in severance. It also contained restrictions that threatened to leave out bonuses and restricted share units (RSUs); incentive-based compensation that made up a substantial part of their pay.

A big part of their compensation was at risk. We challenged both restrictions.

First, we pushed past the severance limit.

We challenged the termination clause because its wording was unclear. We argued that this uncertainty should work in our client’s favour—not cost them severance.

Our successful challenge opened the door to a larger package.

Then, we tackled the bonuses and RSUs.

Getting beyond minimum severance was only half the job. We also needed to address what went into the package.

We argued that the contract did not clearly take away our client’s right to compensation for bonuses and RSUs they would have received during a proper notice period.

We pursued far more than base salary—because our client’s pay went well beyond base salary.

The result? A severance package enhancement well into six figures.

We secured a substantially enhanced package rather than accepting the limits the contract appeared to impose.

At Evolution Legal, we look beyond the number in your severance offer. We examine the contract, the restrictions and the compensation that may be missing.

Before you sign, find out what your severance offer may be leaving out.

Confidential Client: Our client was a successful retail employee. When they were let go, the circumstances raised concerns about discrimination.

We looked beyond the dismissal and focused on why it happened.

We argued that a personal characteristic protected by human rights law played a part in the employer’s decision. We also argued that the employer had failed to meet its duty to accommodate our client’s needs to the point of undue hardship, the legal limit on an employer’s accommodation obligations.

This meant looking beyond severance alone. Human rights compensation can address both lost income and harm to a person’s dignity and self-respect.

The result? A substantially stronger settlement.

We negotiated a package worth materially more than our assessment of the wrongful dismissal claim alone, including a significant amount allocated to general damages to resolve the human rights allegations.

We pursued a resolution that addressed more than lost pay.

Discrimination is not always obvious, and a protected characteristic does not have to be the only reason for a dismissal to raise human rights concerns. At Evolution Legal, we routinely examine the circumstances behind a termination, not just the severance calculation, to identify and pursue our clients’ entitlements.

Before accepting a severance offer, make sure your human rights are part of the conversation.