According to the Civil Code of Québec, an employment contract can be cancelled by the employer or the employee following a reasonable notice of termination (art 2091 CcQ). Failing to provide a reasonable notice of termination by the employer, the employee is entitled to equal compensation and cannot renounce to receiving this compensation (art 2092 CcQ). However, this reasonable notice of termination is not required if the dismissal is due to a “serious reason” (art 2094 CcQ). Those are the main legal rules applicable to both parties to the employment contract. The Court of Appeal, however, applied these articles differently in the case of Asphalte Desjardins Inc. Even with the reasonable notice of termination given by the employee in accordance to article 2091 CcQ, the Court of Appeal recognized the whole legal value of the abrupt dismissal subsequently imposed by the employer which was done without a reasonable notice of termination and without “serious reason”. This is why this case is especially interesting to study from a legal standpoint...