Une indemnité de départ de sept mois après quatre ans de service continu pour un directeur des ventes

Dans une récente décision rendue par la Cour supérieure, Glew c. Lafarge, un directeur régional des ventes obtient une indemnité de délai de congé équivalente à sept mois, après quatre ans et demi de service continu.

Les faits de cette affaire sont, pour la plupart, non contestés. La défenderesse reconnait avoir licencié le demandeur sans cause juste et suffisante à la suite de la suppression de son poste de directeur régional des ventes en 2020. Elle conteste toutefois la demande du demandeur visant à obtenir un délai de congé de 18 mois, au motif que celui-ci s’est trouvé un emploi quatre mois après son licenciement, et que l’indemnité de départ de cinq mois déjà versée correspond, selon elle, à un délai de congé raisonnable.

Pour sa part, le demandeur soutient qu’un délai de 18 mois est justifié, compte tenu notamment de la durée de son service continu, du poste qu’il occupait, de son âge au moment du licenciement – 64 ans -, et de l’absence d’un emploi comparable trouvé par la suite.

Après analyse, la Cour rejette les prétentions des deux parties et ordonne à la défenderesse de verser au demandeur une indemnité équivalente à un délai de congé de sept mois.

Voyez plus spécifiquement la façon dont le juge a motivé sa décision :

[113] The court cannot conclude as Lafarge is pleading that a notice of five months is sufficient because Mr. Glew found employment at Daher four months after his termination. The employment he found was not comparable to the one he held at Lafarge It was a truck driver position at 25 $ per hour. Even if Mr. Glew testified that, in the past, when he had no position in sales, he was working as a truck driver, the Court cannot conclude that his position at Daher is a comparable position to the one he held at Lafarge.

[114] The precedent found in the jurisprudence can be a useful point of comparison, but they have only relative value given that each case is unique.

[115] The jurisprudence submitted by Mr. Glew to justify a severance of 18 months concerns managerial positions except for one case. In addition, even for employees that have held managerial position with length of service like the one of Mr. Glew, the notice period was below 18 months in many cases.

[116] Other cases exist concerning managerial position with short length of service, where the manager was over 50 years old and in which the notice period was varying between 5 to 12 months.

[117] The Court has also identified some cases concerning non-managerial positions with a short length of service or concerning employees over 50 years of age but with a longer length of service and in which notice periods varied between 3 to 15 months.

[118] In the present case, beside Mr. Glew’s age, his difficulty to find alternative employment and to a much lesser extent, his more complex role as sales representative as mentioned before, there are no other elements that would lead to a longer notice or that would pull the notice period to the higher end of the spectrum of the reasonable notice.

[119] Given the above elements discussed taken in their globality, and particularly, his position, responsibilities, age, length of employment which is short, and the fact that he was unable to find a comparable position but had not spent his entire career in a specialized industry and has experience in a wide range of industries, the Court considers that Mr. Glew was entitled to a notice period of seven months.