Français Information Services Decisions/ Judgments/ Articles of interest

Distribution Zone Électrique vs Paul Sylvestre 2018 QCCS 1305        (RESUME)

THE EMPLOYEE THAT RESIGNED WITH A ELEVEN (11) MONTHS NOTICE:  FINAL JUDGMENT

 The case

 Employee Sylvestre resigned giving eleven (11) months notice.

 The employer asked him to leave his employment after three (3) months.

 Employee Sylvestre filed a complaint for dismissal without just cause which the Labor Board received, applying the principles that the Supreme Court retained in the Asphalte Desjardins case.

 The Labor Board has however added that it did not have to decide on the reasonableness of the notice given by either the employee or the employer.  The Labor Board then required the employer to pay the employee for the full eleven (11) months.

 This matter was filed in the Superior Court in judiciary review.

 The judgment

 The honorable judge Legris stated at his paragraph 6:  «The judgment rendered in Asphalte Desjardins (paragr. 44) must not be interpreted as signifying that an employee accepts that his employer terminate his employment without cause when the employee resigns with a notice that is longer than the prenotice that the employer must give him as per the Civil Code.   The Asphalte Desjardins judgment only states that such a resignation cannot stop the employer of his right to terminate the employment on the condition that a reasonable notice be given as per provided in civil law.»

There stops the analysis of the honorable judge Legris.

It would be interesting to understand how, in a civil law context, an employer can argue that he has remitted a prenotice of a reasonable duration when the Labor Board has already decided that the employee must received the full payment for all duration of the employee’s prenotice as provided in his resignation.

 It appears that this judgment will not be filed to the Appeal Court.