In Kong v Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church ( 2015 CarswellBC 2150) the BC Supreme Court awarded a older Senior Pastor with just over 2 years service a notice period of 12 months and also the sum of $30,000 for mental distress caused by the manner of the dismissal. The Court seemed to be influenced in awarding 12 months notice that the written employment contract indicated that after a 12 month adjustment period the employment would become “permanent” and that ” generally speaking , for a senior position, one would expect the notice period to be at least as long as the adjustment period”.
The ” adjustment period ” would seem to be akin to a probationary period. Does this mean that an employee with a 6 month probationary period should get at least a notice period of at least 6 months if he is terminated after the probationary period? That proposition would come as a huge surprise to most employers and employees in Canada.
This case is just another example of the difficulty in assessing notice periods for short service employees, especially those whom the Courts view as holding senior positions as this generosity towards short service employees is not generally found when dealing with middle and lower ranked employees.
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