By Adrian Elmslie, Esq. of Dentons
One of the more confusing issues that employers deal with is what to do in the face a request for a reference letter by a departing employee. While dealing with a reference letter for a stellar employee is easy, the task becomes more difficult when determining what to do with a request for a reference letter from an employee whom the employer was glad to see go or whom the employer was forced to dismiss.
A. When should a reference letter be provided?
There are two reasons why an employer should think carefully before refusing to provide a letter of reference to a departing employee.
First, a reference letter generally assists a departing employee in finding new employment. As a result, on a practical level it is usually in the best interest of both the employer and the employee for the employer to provide a reference letter.
Second, in Canada the courts impose a duty of good faith and fair dealing in their treatment of departing employees. As part of this duty, employers are expected to be candid, reasonable and honest in dealing with departing employees. Where an employer breaches this duty, the employer may be held liable for damages to the employee that arise as a result of the breach.
One of the obligations that has been identified as part of the duty of good faith and fair dealing is for the employer to provide a letter of reference to a departing employee where there is no legitimate reason for refusing the request. For example, employers have been found to have breached their duties of good faith where the refusal to provide a letter of reference was calculated to purposefully make it harder for an employee to find new employment, to pressure the employee into settling a wrongful dismissal claim or to punish the employee. As a result, an employer must have a legitimate reason for refusing to provide a letter of reference. Where there are no specific performance issues and the employee was not terminated for cause, the safest course is to provide a letter of reference.
As a consequence, the better practice is to only refuse to provide a letter of reference in cases where the employer has a legitimate reason for the refusal, such as where the employeeaEUR(TM)s performance during employment was unsatisfactory.
B. What should the reference letter say?
Reference letters can cover the range from a glowing endorsement, to a neutral confirmation of employment to a warning to prospective employers regarding a highly unsuitable employee. In order to know how to approach the reference letter, it is important to know something of potential liabilities.
For the most part the liability that arises out of authoring a reference letter is governed by the law of tort with liability focusing on two primary groups of potential claimants aEUR" the former employee and the new employer.
a) Liability Toward the Departing Employee
With respect to the former employee, claims will generally arise as a result of a negative reference letter that damages the former employeeaEUR(TM)s reputation or interferes with the former employeeaEUR(TM)s ability to find work and maintain employment. In order for liability to attach, the former employee will have to show that the letter materially affected his or her ability to find work and that the negative reference was either untruthful or misleading in some way. Common examples of such liability include:
- Liability in defamation for statements made about the employee in a reference letter that are untrue and are damaging to the employeeaEUR(TM)s reputation;
- Liability under the principles of interference with contractual relations or inducement of breach of contract where an untrue reference provided by the former employer causes the employeeaEUR(TM)s current employer to terminate the former employeeaEUR(TM)s employment. A common example of this would be where a former employer decides to unfairly aEURoeblackballaEUR? a former employee in a particular industry;
- Liability in the form of increased exposure to damages in the case of a wrongfully dismissed employee where the employee is unable to find alternative employment as quickly as he or she may have otherwise found alternative employment due to a misleading or untruthful reference; and
- Liability imposed as a result of a breach of the duty of good faith as a result of the employer providing a misleading or untruthful reference.
b) Liability Toward a Prospective Employer
In contrast to the liabilities that may arise with respect to former employees, the liability that may arise with respect to prospective employers is usually based on reference letters that are unjustifiably positive.
In general terms such liability arises out of the principles of negligent misrepresentation. Liability for negligent misrepresentation can arise where a prospective employer reasonably relies on a misleading positive reference from a former employer in making a hiring decision that goes very badly.