Today the Supreme Court denied the employer/appellant’s application for leave to appeal in CPNI Inc. v. Paramjit Gill, et al., 2016 CanLII 30463 (SCC). Briefly, the employer was in the technology business. It ran out of money and was unable to pay its employees. The employees sued the employer for unpaid wages. The employer claimed it was entitled to deduct amounts from wages because “respondent’s employment contracts requiring them to return company property on request constituted a written authorization” under the Ontario Employment Standards Act. The employer claimed that the employees had stolen computers and intellectual property (software). The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the summary decision dismissing the employer’s defence (Gill v. CPNI Inc., 2015 ONCA 833 (CanLII)).
“[8] We would not give effect to these arguments. Under s. 13 of the ESA, an employer is prohibited from making any deduction from an employee’s wages unless it is authorized to do so under that section. The motion judge was correct in concluding that there was nothing in respondents’ employment contracts that authorized deductions from the respondents’ wages pursuant to s. 13(3). The return of company property provision relied upon by the appellant does not make any reference to deduction from wages nor does any other provision in the contract. Accordingly, this defence did not raise a genuine issue requiring a trial.”