In Gent v. Askanda Business Services Ltd., 2025 BCSC 1278, the B.C. Supreme Court limited an employee’s wrongful dismissal damages based on the employee’s stated intention to retire when they reached the age of 65.
Mr. Gent worked for Askanda, a company that sold and serviced draft beer equipment, for over 30 years. In March 2020, Mr. Gent was laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was never recalled to work. Over a year later, Mr. Gent brought a claim for wrongful dismissal.
Askanda defended the claim, arguing that Mr. Gent had resigned or retired after a May 2020 phone call with his supervisor in which he allegedly said he was moving to Langley with his young family, and planned to retire at age 65—about six months later.
Mr. Gent, however, claimed he never officially resigned and was waiting for Askanda to recall him after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The central issue in this case was whether Mr. Gent had been wrongfully dismissed when Askanda failed to recall him after his statutory lay-off period ended, or whether he had voluntarily resigned and retired.
The Court accepted Mr. Gent’s evidence that he had never communicated a clear intention to resign. A vague remark such as “I might as well retire” was not sufficient to support a finding of resignation.
The Court stressed that, given the ambiguity of Mr. Gent’s comments, Askanda was required to seek Mr. Gent’s clarification at the time to confirm his intentions. Its failure to do so meant it could not prove that he had resigned. As a result, the Court found that Mr. Gent had been wrongfully dismissed.
Mr. Gent’s own evidence at trial revealed that he intended to retire at 65—six months from his termination date. The Court concluded that, on this basis, Mr. Gent would not have worked beyond his 65th birthday even if he had been recalled. On that basis, the Court awarded damages reflecting only a six month notice period, even though the Court acknowledged that the relevant factors would have otherwise supported a longer period of notice. The Court noted that Mr. Gent was entitled to be put back in the position he would have been in had he not been wrongfully dismissed; however, he was not entitled to be put in a better position.
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