Bardal Factors Employment Law Tool (Tip of the Week)

November 25, 2016

By Alan Kilpatrick

Researching employment law?  You will be excited to learn about a new employment law resource, bardalfactors.ca.  Designed to be used by lawyers and self-represented litigants, this tool enables you to quickly and easily identify reasonable notice periods for termination and dismissal.

Specifically, the tool allows you to locate cases that have applied the Bardal factors.  What are these factors exactly?  The factors come from the 1960 decision Bardal v. Globe & Mail Ltd. (1960), 24 DLR (2d) 140.  They include age, length of employment, character of employment, and availability of similar employment.  According to the website, the factors:

Represent the starting point in determining reasonable notice.  And since there are over 1,000 rulings from Canadian courts expressly laying out precisely how the factors were applied, everyone – from employment lawyers to employers to employees – can look through the rulings and form a pretty good guess of how a court might rule.

However, bardalfactors.ca cautions that employment law is very complex and the factors are only a basic starting point for determining legal entitlement to notice.  More research is always needed.  The tool is still under development and is available in beta.

Employment lawyers, please let us know what you think about this new website!  Check out this YouTube video if you would like practical tips on searching it.

If you have any questions, ask a Law Society Librarian! We are pleased to provide high-quality legal research services to Saskatchewan members in person, on the telephone, or by email.