Rasanen v Rosemount

 After Henry Rasanen was fired, he filed a complaint with the Ministry of Labour seeking recovery of the then maximum sum of $4,000 under the Employment Standards Act.

 His then legal counsel did not attend the hearing under the Act, which was then  a common place decision. After all, the Ministry appointed its own counsel to act and why build up legal costs for the small sum sought in this manner ?

 To the shock of the legal community, the trial judge, the late Mr. Justice R.E. Holland dismissed the civil law suit, deciding that he was bound by the decision under the Act, which had denied the claim.

 The Court of Appeal, again to the surprise of many ( including me ) agreed with the trial judge and dismissed the appeal. It argued that the courts were bound by the decision of the Employment Standards referee, even though that process had no procedural safeguards, no rights of pre-trial discovery and also was intended to allow employees to recover small sums to tide them over in times of emergency.

Ironically, this decision created a flood of applications to the Ministry for such sums. Plaintiffs' legal counsel regarded the views of the referees as quite liberal and sought successfully to argue the converse – winning at the referee level under the Act also bound the employer in civil cases.

 This regrettably resulted in legislation passed in late 1996 which barred individuals from seeking recovery under the Act and also suing civilly.