Talk:Downtown Eatery (1993) v Ontario

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 07:07, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

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• ... that a strip club manager in Toronto sued a company that did not employ him for wrongful dismissal? Source: "In December 1992, Grad offered Alouche a position as manager of the nightclub For Your Eyes Only." and "Alouche commenced work on December 29, 1992." and '"I sued Best Beaver . . . because the paycheque that they gave me in For Your Eyes Only, it says Best Beaver Management Inc."'(Downtown Eatery (1993) Ltd. v. Ontari at CanLII)

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Alai Darwaza; see my DYK tracker

Moved to mainspace by Mindmatrix (talk). Self-nominated at 17:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC).

• Drive-by comment. Isn't the holding of Downtown Eatery that the plaintiff was employed by a consortium of corporate entities including the named defendant? See Downtown Eatery (1993) Ltd v Ontario, 2001 CanLII 8538 (Ont CA) at para 40: "we conclude that Alouche's employer in June 1993 when he was wrongfully dismissed was all of Twin Peaks, The Landing Strip, Downtown Eatery and Best Beaver". And Mohamed F Khimji & Jon Viner, "Oppression — Reducing Canadian Corporate Law to a Muddy Default", 2016 47-1 Ottawa Law Review 123, 2016 CanLIIDocs 87 at page 173: "… in Downtown Eatery, the applicant, Alouche, successfully obtained judgment for wrongful dismissal against his employer corporation, Best Beaver" (emphasis added in both cases). AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:52, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• @AleatoryPonderings: Yes, but note that this court case is the "leading case with respect to the issue of common employers", establishing a precedent in Canadian law. At the time the lawsuit was filed, this was not the case, and in fact the trial judge ruled against Alouche (see last paragraph of background section); it was only after the case was brought to the Court of Appeal for Ontario that the "common employer doctrine" was established, and it became entrenched when leave to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court of Canada was dismissed. Mindmatrix 15:11, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• Ah, so the idea behind the hook is that, since Downtown Eatery changed the law on common employers, before Downtown Eatery Best Beaver would not have been Alouche's employer? That makes more sense. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:20, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm going to inspect this again... Mindmatrix 15:18, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• @AleatoryPonderings: Alright, so to ensure everything is correct, the following timeline occurred:

• Alouche was hired to be manager at For Your Eyes Only (owned by Grad and Grosman), and began work on 29 December 1992
• Alouche was sent a Notice of Discipline in May 1993, and was fired on 15 June 1993
• In October 1993, Alouche filed action for wrongful dismissal against Best Beaver Management Inc., as that was the source of his paycheques
• Best Beaver ceased operations in mid-1996, and all assets distributed to other companies owned by Grad and Grosman
• The trial resolved in favour of Alouche
• Best Beaver did not pay out the judgement (all its assets had been redistributed)
• Sherriffs were dispatched to For Your Eyes Only, where they seized $1,855
• Downtown Eatery filed claim against Alouche, stating the cash belonged to it
• Alouche defended, and counterclaimed against Grad, Grosman, and all companies they controlled on the grounds of common employer doctrine, the oppression remedy of the Ontario Business Corporations Act, and fraudulent conveyance
• the judge in the second trial (at Ontario Superior Court of Justice) ruled against Alouche
• the case was brought to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, where the previous ruling was overturned in 2001
• in January 2002, an application for leave to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court of Canada was dismissed

• So, the common employer doctrine was part of the second trial as a counterclaim to the suit filed by Downtown Eatery. I just wanted to ensure this satisfies your concerns. Mindmatrix 18:25, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for this incredibly thorough response. My concern is maybe philosophical or definitional. If I say that company A employs person B, that has an ordinary meaning and a legal meaning. It is probably right that Best Beaver did not employ Alouche in the ordinary sense of "employ", because Best Beaver was a "paymaster" and not the name on the front of the building where he went to work. My reading of the case itself is that, before Downtown Eatery, it was at best indeterminate as a legal matter whether Best Beaver, alone or in combination with its affiliate companies, employed Alouche. After Downtown Eatery, it was established—as a matter of legal meaning, but not necessarily ordinary meaning—that Best Beaver was his employer, or part of his employer, or something like that. The reason I brought this up is that it's not clear how one could verify the claim that "Best Beaver was not Alouche's employer", because that claim might be true as a matter of ordinary meaning but the only authoritative legal ruling we have on this (namely, Downtown Eatery) holds that the claim is false. In any event, I'll leave this to the eventual reviewer to sort out. I find my brain twisting into knots. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:12, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

• Clarifying that the above is only a side discussion and that a review is still required. Mindmatrix 20:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• Article meets length and newness requirements, no close paraphrasing detected, QPQ done. Having read the article a couple times and absorbing the above discussion, I believe ALT0 as written is valid because the past tense did reflects that, legally speaking, that Alouche was not an employee of Best Beaver at the time of his wrongful dismissal claim; company in this context is loaded with a legal connotation so I don't think we have to clarify it as "sued a company that did not legally employ him". It's a conundrum but I think it makes for a compelling hook. DigitalIceAge (talk) 06:54, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

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