What is the test for a wrongful dismissal claim?

Bearing in mind the fact that wrongful dismissal suits are suits for breach of contract, assessing their damages follows familiar principles. One of the most familiar is the defence that the plaintiff failed to mitigate his or her damages, and that was pleaded and argued here. The most important and undoubted qualification on that defence is this. The efforts of the plaintiff will not be nicely weighed, particularly with hindsight. All that the plaintiff need do is to make what at the time is an objectively reasonable decision; he or she need not make the best possible decision. In particular, the courts will not usually expect one faced with a breach of contract to take steps which are risky or unsavory. The onus of proof is on the defendant (says Michaels v. Red Deer College 1975 CanLII 15 (SCC), [1976] 2 S.C.R. 324) and so any gap in the evidence accrues to the plaintiff's benefit. In wrongful dismissal cases, the courts have extended that qualification a little further: the plaintiff need not mitigate damages by taking a significant demotion, or by going back to the employer who fired him or her. All that is trite law.