canada employment labor-law ontario
Is employer required to honor an oral vacation approval?
<p>Someone close to me, let's call her Jane, has a problem with an employer in Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Jane's elderly mother (let's call her Ingrid) is planning to visit Jane from overseas, with great difficulty and expense. Jane would like to spend time with her mother while she is in Canada.</p>

<p>Before buying Ingrid's flight tickets, Jane has approached her manager and asked for vacation time during Ingrid's proposed visit. The manager has approved 1 week of vacation (orally) and so flight tickets were purchased and other arrangements made. These would be very difficult and expensive to change.</p>

<p>Now, about a month later, the manager has reversed his decision and is refusing to grant Jane the vacation time - the earliest time the manager is willing to approve is long after Ingrid's visit. Can the manager legally reverse his earlier oral approval? Would the availability of witnesses to the oral approval make any difference?</p>

<p>(I realize that the chances of finding a specific expert in Ontario labor law on this site is a long shot, but <em>any answer based on a common-law jurisdiction would be much better than no answer at all</em>. I am reaching out to some Ontario lawyers in parallel, but it would be great to get an answer here as well even if it is not specific to Ontario or even to Canada).</p>

<p>I cannot help with Ontario, Canada but <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/annual-leave/taking-annual-leave" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> is the situation in Australia. Relevantly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An employee needs to request to take annual leave before going on leave. The process for requesting annual leave is often set out in an award or registered agreement, company policy or contract of employment.</p>
<p>An employer can only refuse an employee's request for annual leave if the refusal is reasonable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If there was a requirement &quot;in an award or registered agreement, company policy or contract of employment&quot; for requests to be in writing then the employee would have no right to take leave based on an oral agreement. Further, if the employer's circumstances changes such that it was reasonable to refuse or rescind a request, the employee would have no right to leave.</p>
<p>However, the employee <em>may</em> have a case under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel" rel="nofollow noreferrer">promissory estapol</a> to either require the employer to honour the oral agreement or compensate the employee for any loss incurred by relying on the oral agreement.</p>
