Kaley Duff

Bio

Kaley is an associate at Cavalluzzo, primarily practicing in the areas of employment, labour, class actions, human rights, and professional regulations. In her employment law practice, she represents workers across all sectors. In the unionized setting, she has a particular focus on the education sector. Kaley has represented clients before all levels of court in Ontario, in addition to various administrative tribunals and labour arbitrators.

Kaley is deeply committed to workplace fairness. As a parent herself, she is particularly passionate about assisting parents navigate their rights surrounding statutory leaves, family status accommodations, and related issues. She prides herself on being a pragmatic advocate, and works closely with her clients to help them achieve their goals as efficiently as possible.

Kaley graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she was an active volunteer at Advocates for Injured Workers, representing workers before the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, as well as Downtown Legal Services, Employment Division, where she represented workers in a wide variety of employment and human rights-related disputes.

Prior to attending law school, she studied music at the University of Ottawa, and worked as a professional musician and piano teacher for many years.

Some notable cases include:

Wrongful Dismissal

• Clark v Township of Otonabee-South Monaghan, 2019 ONSC 6978, obtaining a six-figure judgment for a grader operator who had been terminated without cause
• Rahman v. Cannon Design Architecture Inc., 2022 ONCA 451, overturning an decision that upheld a void termination clause, and finding that the multiple defendants constituted a common employer

  Class Actions

• Bowman v. Ontario, 2021 ONCA 795, successful appeal resulting in the decision to certify a class of 4,000 Ontarians who participated in the Ontario Basic Income Pilot
• Walmsley v. 2016169 Ontario Inc., 2020 ONSC 1416, successful resolution of a class action brought on behalf of teachers at Blyth Academy schools, who the class action alleged had been misclassified as independent contractors and denied minimum employment standards
• Bourque v Cineflix, 2021 ONSC 8464, approving a multi-million-dollar settlement for the 870 class members who we alleged were denied holiday, vacation and overtime pay

   

  Labour Arbitration

• TCDSB v OECTA, 2019 CanLII 40328, regarding worker health and safety matters
• Toronto Hydro-Electric System Ltd v Society of United Professionals, 2022 CanLII 41541, regarding a collective agreement interpretation issue
• OPG v Society of United Professionals, 2021 CanLII 125607, finding that the employer had improperly terminated the grievor, and ordering damages as a result

   

  Other Administrative Tribunals

• Keil v OECTA, 2023 HRTO 1644, successfully defending a union against a human rights application
• Decision No. 1649/15, 2015 ONWSIAT 2878, successfully argued that the WSIAT should reopen the issue of loss of earnings benefits, despite being past the 72-month post-injury period
• Decision No. 829/17, 2017 ONWSIAT 3400, finding the worker, who had been injured in the workplace, was entitled to WSIB benefits for Psychotraumatic disability