The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently addressed a case involving the limits of employer conduct when a staff member is on medical leave, dismissing an appeal from a home care company that had been ordered to pay $34,800 to a former employee1. In a decision released on December 29, 2025, Justice Spencer Nicholson of the Divisional Court upheld a Small Claims Court ruling that found Jennifer Minkarious had been constructively dismissed from her role at Physical Relief Home Care. The case provides a detailed look at how a series of adversarial interactions, including an unannounced visit to an employee’s home and pestering messages about medical diagnoses, can create a “poisoned” work environment that legally ends an employment relationship.
Jennifer Minkarious began her tenure with Physical Relief Home Care, a small privately owned company operated by Elaine Knight, in September 2015. Initially hired as a personal support worker, Ms. Minkarious was promoted in early 2019 to the position of Executive Assistant. In this updated role, she worked directly for Ms. Knight, earning an annual salary of $43,000. Her primary responsibilities involved the administrative side of the business, specifically tracking patient visits and completing the paperwork necessary for the company to bill its clients. For several years, the relationship appeared stable, but the situation began to deteriorate in the summer of 2020.
The tension started during a period of high stress for many healthcare-related businesses. In July 2020, Ms. Minkarious received what she described as her first formal negative job review. The company expressed concerns that she had failed to accurately record several dozen site visits for the Victorian Order of Nurses, an error that allegedly resulted in the company not being paid for the work. A meeting was scheduled for late August 2020 to address these billing discrepancies with the client, but Ms. Minkarious called in sick. The meeting was pushed to September 21, 2020, but the conflict only intensified as the new date approached.
On the eve of the rescheduled meeting, Ms. Minkarious informed Ms. Knight that she would be unable to attend because of a doctor’s appointment and intended to go on medical leave. The response from her employer was immediate and profane. Both parties agreed that Ms. Knight reacted with frustration, with Ms. Knight admitting she likely said, “for Fuck’s sake,” when she learned her assistant would be absent for the crucial meeting. The following day, Ms. Minkarious arrived with a physician’s note confirming she was unfit for work due to medical reasons. The encounter that followed was described as “very, very heated,” with Ms. Knight allegedly telling her employee that she was on “thin ice.”
The most pivotal event in the litigation occurred just one day after the medical leave began. On September 22, 2020, Ms. Knight drove to Ms. Minkarious’ apartment unannounced. While Ms. Knight characterized the visit as a necessary step to retrieve a company-issued cellphone, the court heard a much more confrontational version of events from Ms. Minkarious. She testified that her boss opened the door and walked past her into the apartment without being invited. Ms. Minkarious described a scene where Ms. Knight “hovered” over her as she tried to remove personal information from the device. Fearing for her privacy, Ms. Minkarious eventually performed a factory reset on the phone to delete her data before handing it over.
Further evidence from a neighbor and photographic documentation supported Ms. Minkarious’ claim that Ms. Knight had parked her vehicle in a way that “boxed in” Ms. Minkarious’ car in the parking lot. The neighbor testified to hearing raised voices during the encounter, contradicting Ms. Knight’s assertion that the visit was non-confrontational and that she had merely entered the home to help hold back a dog. The trial judge found the manager’s version of events less credible, specifically describing the unannounced home visit as “inappropriate” and an intrusion into the employee’s personal space during a vulnerable time.
The weeks that followed the home visit saw a continued stream of communication from Ms. Knight that the court later deemed adversarial. Despite being on medical leave, Ms. Minkarious received numerous texts from her boss. Some of these messages questioned the validity of her illness, with Ms. Knight asking “what did all the tests show?” and “so they still haven’t found out what’s wrong with you?” within hours of each other. Furthermore, Ms. Knight sent an email threatening legal action against Ms. Minkarious if she made any “slanderous” comments about the company. The court noted that these communications, when viewed as a whole, demonstrated a failure to respect the boundaries of a medical leave and the employee’s right to privacy.
By November 2020, the company had promoted another employee to a position above Ms. Minkarious, a move Ms. Knight defended as necessary for the continued administration of the business. However, Ms. Minkarious testified that she felt under constant pressure to either return to work before she was ready or to quit entirely. One specific incident involved a phone call from Ms. Knight while Ms. Minkarious was grocery shopping with a friend. The friend testified that the call, in which Ms. Knight demanded to know when the employee would return, left Ms. Minkarious visibly upset and shaken.
A central point of contention in the appeal was whether Ms. Minkarious had abandoned her job rather than being pushed out. During the same month she went on leave, Ms. Minkarious had applied for and been accepted into a Business Administration program at Conestoga College. She accepted the offer of admission on September 29, 2020, and began full-time studies in January 2021. The company argued that this proved she never intended to return and had effectively resigned. However, Ms. Minkarious testified that she was unsure about her future at the time of the application and was weighing her options. Justice Nicholson found that applying for school did not constitute an “unequivocal” act of resignation, especially given the toxic environment she was facing at work.
The legal concept of “constructive dismissal” was the heart of the case. In Ontario law, an employee is constructively dismissed when an employer’s conduct shows they no longer intend to be bound by the employment contract. This can happen through a single major change, such as a massive pay cut, or through a “poisoned” work environment created by a series of incidents. The original trial judge ruled that the combination of the home visit, the pestering texts, the threats of litigation, and the lack of privacy constituted such an environment. The Divisional Court agreed, noting that the employer’s behavior was persistent and egregious enough to make continued employment intolerable.
The company also argued that even if there were grounds for constructive dismissal, Ms. Minkarious had waited too long to sue, thereby “condoning” the employer’s behavior. They pointed out that she did not serve her lawsuit until March 2021, six months after the initial conflict. Justice Nicholson rejected this argument, citing recent Ontario Court of Appeal precedents which hold that employees on medical leave are often unable to make immediate legal decisions because they are overwhelmed by the very conduct that caused their illness. The court found that filing a statement of claim is a clear signal of ending the relationship, and doing so within six months was reasonable under these specific circumstances.
In addition to the $14,800 awarded for the loss of her job, the court upheld a $20,000 award for violations of the Ontario Human Rights Code. This part of the judgment focused on the fact that Ms. Minkarious’ disability—her medical condition that required leave—was a factor in how she was treated. Under Ontario law, an employer does not have to be motivated solely by discrimination for a violation to occur; it is enough if the disability is one of the reasons for the negative treatment. The court found that Ms. Knight’s frustration with the medical leave and her demands for private medical information directly linked the constructive dismissal to Ms. Minkarious’ health status.
The final decision emphasizes that Small Claims Court judges are given significant leeway to reach “just” results based on their assessment of witness credibility. Justice Nicholson noted that an appellate court should not interfere with such findings unless there is a “palpable and overriding error.” Because the trial judge had evidence to support the finding that the workplace had become toxic, the higher court saw no reason to overturn the result. The appeal was dismissed in its entirety, and Physical Relief Home Care was ordered to pay Ms. Minkarious’ legal costs for the appeal process.
The ruling serves as a factual record of the obligations employers have toward employees who are absent for health reasons. It reinforces the principle that while an employer has a right to manage their business, that right does not extend to unannounced home visits or the repeated questioning of an employee’s medical symptoms during a protected leave. By upholding both the dismissal damages and the human rights award, the court affirmed that the protection of employee dignity and privacy remains a central component of Ontario’s employment and human rights landscape.
Read about more employment law cases here.
Read about other human rights cases here.
