A recent Ontario Superior Court decision considered pregnancy as a factor for calculating the reasonable notice period when an employee’s position is terminated. Released on February 26, 2021, Nahum v Honeycomb Hospitality Inc. cited Ontario precedent in awarding five months’ pay-in-lieu of reasonable notice to the plaintiff, who had worked for the employer for a total of four-and-a-half months, but was pregnant at the time of her termination without cause. The court rejected the defendant’s arguments that including pregnancy as a factor would create problems with human rights legislation, or that it would open up the determination to other physical factors, such as height, or even that a complainant must provide evidence that pregnancy negatively impacted their job prospects after termination. This Bulletin summarizes the facts of the case and highlights some of the reasoning in the court’s analysis on factors for assessing reasonable notice of termination that employers, including charities and not-for-profits, must consider.

For the balance of this Bulletin, please see Charity & NFP Law Bulletin No. 493.