BlackBerry employees file $20M suit over severance
TORONTO BlackBerry Ltd. is facing a $20-million class-action lawsuit from employees who allege they were misled into accepting jobs with Ford Motor Co. of Canada without proper severance for their years of service.
Ottawa law firm Nelligan O’Brien Payne filed notice of action with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice this week on behalf of about 300 employees whose employment was transferred to Ford from BlackBerry when the companies partnered to develop connected car software last fall. At the time, BlackBerry said it would create an engineering team to work directly with Ford on its fleet’s infotainment systems.
Employees agreed to accept or were offered employment with Ford, according to the notice of action. BlackBerry and Ford stated the deal was not a sale of business and therefore employees’ years of service and severance entitlements would not transfer to Ford.
Employees were handed resignation letters and asked to sign them, lawyer Andrew Reinholdt said Friday. “There was the feeling among the employees that if they didn’t accept the position with Ford that there wouldn’t be anything with BlackBerry.”
The suit argues this amounted to a termination of employment and that employees are entitled to statutory, common law and contractual entitlements on termination. “(BlackBerry) structured the transaction to circumvent paying the BlackBerry employees’ statutory entitlements,” it stated.
The representative plaintiff David Parker worked at BlackBerry for 14 years before being offered employment at Ford. After he accepted, he was told he would lose his years of service in the transfer, Reinholdt said.
The majority of employees affected are based in Ontario, with a third in Ottawa alone, he said.
On top of their entitlements on termination, the lawsuit seeks bad faith and punitive damages.
None of the allegations has been proven in court and BlackBerry has denied any wrongdoing.
“We have reviewed the allegations in the lawsuit, and are confident we complied with all our obligations to our employees. Therefore, we believe the case lacks merit,” spokeswoman Sarah McKinney said in an email.