The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that a tractor sales company did not have just cause to terminate a 56-year-old salesperson with 18 years of service following a customer complaint.
The court found the evidence presented was inadequate to justify dismissal, awarding the plaintiff damages based on a 17-month notice period.
Incident that broke the camel’s back?
W.W. was fired from Brandt Tractor Inc. on Sept. 1, 2021, following what the company described as “a variety of incidents” culminating in an Aug. 30 customer complaint about his sales practices.
According to the termination letter, W.W. had “tried to get the customer to sign a sales agreement for a piece of equipment we do not have and financing that hadn’t been finalized yet.” The letter stated the customer was dissatisfied with W.W.’s “business practice and unprofessionalism” and would take his business to another branch.
The company relied on the cumulative misconduct principle, arguing this final incident was sufficient to “break the camel’s back” when combined with previous disciplinary issues.
Hearsay evidence proves insufficient
The court noted W.W.’s dismissal hinged on whether the August incident warranted discipline, which depended on the probative value of the evidence.
Brandt’s evidence came from W.W.’s manager, D.C., who testified using an email he’d sent to his superior and HR. The email described a call from the customer who claimed W.W. had been “extremely unprofessional, calling him 8 times a day” and telling him “not to read the second page of the agreement, only to initial it.”
However, the court found this evidence was entirely hearsay since the customer did not testify.
“The court had no means of testing the credibility of the customer’s account as related to Mr. Clark,” the court wrote, adding the evidence “satisfied neither of the requirements of necessity and reliability for admissibility of hearsay for truth of serious allegations.”
The court acknowledged W.W. admitted to dealing with the customer and trying to sell equipment still on the production line with financing not yet confirmed, but noted “he testified that all members of the sales staff did this.”
Customer complaints require proper evidence
While finding W.W. lacked credibility overall, the court emphasized that a customer’s subjective interpretation cannot determine an employee’s fate without proper verification.
“Sales personnel operate with varying degrees of pushiness. The customer may have found this annoying, but the employment status of a long-time employee cannot hang in the balance of a customer’s subjective interpretation of his conduct,” the court stated.
The court concluded that while D.C.’s email established an encounter occurred between W.W. and the customer, it did not prove wrongdoing: “The email and (the) telephone call with the customer do not rise to the prima facie proof of facts in the statement.”
17-month notice period awarded
Having found no just cause for termination, the court awarded damages based on a 17-month notice period, between the plaintiff’s request for 18-20 months and the defendant’s suggestion of 15 months.
W.W. had argued for an increased notice period because the dismissal occurred “during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic,” which has been recognized in other cases as grounds for finding a shortage of positions. The court noted, however, that “there was no evidence that the demand for Brandt’s products subsided during the Pandemic.”
No reduction for mitigation
After his termination, W.W. took a lower-paying position driving a parts vehicle. He testified he was content with this arrangement because “he wanted to get out of sales.”
The defendant argued this constituted a failure to mitigate damages by not seeking comparable employment. However, the court rejected this argument, citing the principle that “if the employee can only find a lower-paying or ranking position, as in the case of Mr. Williamson, the earnings are not deductible.”
The court found the evidence on this point “thin” and declined to reduce the notice period based on W.W.’s alternative employment.
Punitive damages claim dismissed
The plaintiff sought punitive damages, arguing that failure to provide notice under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) or payment in lieu constitutes an “independent actionable wrong.”
While accepting that “breach of the ESA is an actionable wrong, in the sense that the statute allows the dismissed employee to claim a remedy,” the court declined to award punitive damages, stating there “must be more, such as the egregious conduct requirement described in the case law.”
The parties were instructed to calculate the damage award based on the 17-month notice period.
For more information, see William Williamson v. Brandt Tractor Inc., 2025 ONSC 2571 (CanLII).
