How Key Is The Employee? Identifying When An Employee Is A Fiduciary

A fiduciary employee is an employee trusted with a measure of responsibility by their employer. This in turn creates corresponding duties owed by the fiduciary that go over and above those normally owed by an employee to an employer.

It is therefore important to understand if an employee is a fiduciary employee both during employment as well as upon termination. It is especially relevant upon termination because the obligations owed by the fiduciary employee to the employer survive for a reasonable period following the end of the employment relationship. A fiduciary employee has the continuing obligation not to exploit advantages derived from their prior position in order to compete with the former employer. This includes for example, soliciting other employees to quit and join in the employee's new business, or soliciting the business of the former employer's clients/customers.

The Alberta Court of Appeal in HRC Tool & Die Mfg Ltd v. Naderi, considered the characteristics indicating a fiduciary employee from an "ordinary" one. There, the employer, HRC Tool & Die Mfg Ltd. ("HRC"), operated a machine shop in Edmonton. Two employees were hired, one as a purchasing agent and one as a machine...