Can an employee who is recently disabled and on LTD but whose prognosis is uncertain be terminated or is this grounds for wrongful dismissal? How much more severance etc does an employee have to give a long term employee if wrongful dismissal is determined.

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry.

My name is Chris Justice and I am a lawyer with Samfiru Tumarkin LLP.

In answer to your question, if someone has recently been placed on LTD, an employer can still terminate his or her employment. However, the risk in doing this would be that it could very well look like discrimination on the basis of a disability. This is why not a lot of employers will terminate so early on after someone has been approved for LTD. If the prognosis is still uncertain and it has been a couple of years, however, that may be a different story.

Also, long-term employees typically receive more severance, though it depends on a case-by-case basis as to specifically how much you may be entitled to. Whether or not you signed an employment agreement (and what is contained therein) may also affect how much severance you may be entitled to.

I highly recommend you give our firm a call. We would be happy to schedule a consultation with you where we can gather more information and be in a better position to fully advise you as to your rights and entitlements.