Severance Pay Lawyer
Fighting for heightened severance pay as most Canadian employers have cheated their employees of earned money throughout their job and than attempt to underpay severance pay through aggressive legal & financial pressure tactics.
Neufeld Legal P.C. can be reached by telephone at 403-400-4092 / 905-616-8864 or email Chris@NeufeldLegal.com
When one's employer decides to unilaterally discontinue one's employment, most terminated employees are offered both statutory termination pay in lieu of notice and common law severance pay to compensate the fired employee for the abrupt end of their job, for which they are generally unprepared to financially deal with, as their focus had been on their current job, as opposed to looking for a replacement job.
Typically, the employer's computation of severance pay is either based on a contractual methodology set out in the employee's employment agreement or an undisclosed employer formula that the employer does not share with its employees or their lawyers.
For too long, employment agreements have been viewed as largely untouchable, such that those employees tend not to challenge their former employer's proposed severance pay package, and many employee lawyers similarly fail to recognize the contractual deficiencies in these employment agreements when applied against the entirety of the fired employee's employment. Yet, this is the almost inevitable outcome when one does not look beyond the immediate termination event and the employment agreement, as in what would appear to be the majority of Canadian employment situations, in our professional estimation, the employment agreement cannot withstand the legal scrutiny of the employer's employment practices during the entirety of the employee's employment, such that the limited severance pay of the employment agreement is not what the fired employee is legally capable of realizing, but for their former boss' misportrayal of their legal entitlements.
The situation tends to be even more stark when there is no contractual outline of severance pay calculations and the employer simply relies upon its financial superiority to dictate the amount of severance pay that it is prepared to pay, using the financial predicament created by its abrupt firing of their employee, and their lack of financial security and preparedness, to push upon the employee a lesser severance package, where employees and their lawyers have become overly reliant upon legal responses that are almost exclusively focused on the termination event, and which employers and their lawyers are fully apprised of and thus capable of responding to. And where this is the exclusive legal tactic of the fired employee and their legal team, which is extremely prevalent, it becomes a better of time and wills, over which the employer invariably holds the power. And that is why employees need something more, otherwise the employee's legal team is operating from a legal and financial disadvantage.
Based on our own legal analysis and research, few, if any, employers and their legal counsel have sought to address these legal issues, given the cascading impact it would have on the entirety of its employee payroll, such that it is a critical legal advantage to those knowledgeable as to these employer problems and how they might be applied to optimize one's severance pay.
If you have lost your job, it is imperative that you scrutinize your severance pay (or why your former boss is contending you are not due severance pay). For a free initial consultation, contact our law firm at Chris@NeufeldLegal.com or 403-400-4092 / 905-616-8864.
| Legal Factors Used to Determine Severance Pay - The Bardal Factors are a series of legal considerations that have become well established court precedent for purposes of determining the appropriate notice period, and hence severance pay, for fired and terminated employees in Canada. Read More . . . |
| Severance Pay: One Month per Year of Service? - The computation of the appropriate common law severance pay is premised on what the applicable notice period is for a fired or terminated employee, and what we find frequently bandied about as a rule of thumb is one month’s notice per year of service, which effectively means one month’s pay per year of service. But is this an actual rule? Read More . . . |
| Not Paid Severance Pay - When you are fired from your job and all that you are receiving is termination pay in lieu of notice (if you even get that), while your former employer is paying little or no severance pay, than you need to be taking immediate action, because the last thing you should allow is to be pushed out the door without having been fully paid. Read More . . . |
| What's Missing from Your Severance Pay Package - When you're fired, laid off or otherwise terminated from your job and are provided with a termination and severance pay package, it is important to not only understand what is included in your former employer's paperwork, but also what is missing. Read More . . . |
IMPORTANT NOTE: This website is designed for general informational purposes. The site is not designed to answer specific questions about your individual situation or entitlement. Do not rely upon the information provided on this website as legal advice in respect of your individual situation nor use it as substitute for individual legal advice. If you want specific legal advice, you need to engage a lawyer under established legal engagement procedures that have been specifically agreed to by that lawyer.