Court Finds CIBC Liable In Overtime Class Action
Today, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued reasons for judgment in the long-running unpaid overtime class action lawsuit against Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). The Court ruled in favour of the class of approximately 31,000 current and former tellers, personal bankers and other front-line workers in retail branches across Canada, finding that CIBC breached its overtime obligations to the Class.
The law firms of Roy O’Connor LLP, Sotos LLP and Goldblatt Partners LLP represent the Class Members in this action.
The class action lawsuit (Dara Fresco v Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) was initially launched in 2007, and was the first class action brought in Canada against the overtime policies and procedures of a major Canadian corporation.
In ruling in favour of the Plaintiff Dara Fresco and the Class Members, Justice Edward Belobaba found that, among other things:
“…CIBC was careless and indifferent, indeed negligent, about its obligation to comply with the requirements of the [Canada Labour] Code. I can also find that the bank should have known better. It is a multi-billion-dollar financial institution with an able legal staff that can easily advise on the requirements of federal labour law. For some reason this didn’t happen. The bank dropped the ball, to be sure.“
Justice Belobaba found that the Bank’s overtime policies and hours-of-work recording practices were unlawful, were system-wide in nature and impeded class member overtime claims. His Honour also found that the Bank “must be found to have permitted (or not prevented) all uncompensated hours of the class members”.