The former president and founder of a company brought a successful wrongful dismissal action against their employer. The company argued they had just cause for the termination because the plaintiff had acted fraudulently and breached their fiduciary and statutory duties.

The Court found that the company failed to establish just cause for termination of the plaintiff. The substantial documentary and oral evidence before the court revealed a variety of general and contextual factors supporting this conclusion, such as the:

• the size and history of the company;
• plaintiff’s integral role in funding, founding and running the company for 24 years;
• informal nature of how the company was run;
• lack of policies surrounding commercial transactions;
• lack of forensic audit or financial investigation to substantiate the alleged reason for dismissal; and
• plaintiff was dismissed without warning or ultimatum to improve.

The court was satisfied the transactions entered into by the plaintiff were fair and reasonable to the company. Importantly, the company failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their allegations of fraud and breaches against the plaintiff, leading the court to conclude there was no just cause for the dismissal.

The Court of Appeal upheld this decision in Eisler Estate v. GWR Resources Inc., 2021 BCCA 113.

This case was digested by Una Radoja and first published in the Harper Grey Insurance Law Newsletter. If you would like to discuss this case further, please contact Una Radoja at uradoja@harpergrey.com.