Responding to Time Theft: What Can Employers Do?
Ontario courts have treated “time theft” as the deliberate misrepresentation of hours worked while still being paid for that time. Examples of such practices could include falsifying timesheets or attendance records, “punching in” for a coworker, and conducting personal tasks on company time. Time theft can have significant effects on a business; therefore, employers may want to know what they can do to respond. Can you fire an employee for cause for doing this or just issue a warning? How have courts decided what constitutes terminating an employee for cause or without cause? This article will briefly review two recent time theft-related decisions from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice; one where just cause was upheld, and one where just cause was denied, to highlight the important employment law takeaways.
Abbasbayli v. Fiera Foods Company
In Abbasbayli v. Fiera Foods Company, the Ontario Superior Court considered whether Fiera, a frozen food manufacturing company, had just cause to terminate Abbasbayli, who had engaged in “time theft” by punching another employee’s timecard and allowing that employee to punch his.[i] The employer’s investigation compared timecard records with video footage from the punch-clock stations.[ii] The evidence showed that the employees had used each other’s timecards so that they could arrive late or leave early while their timecards reflected that they had worked their full shifts.[iii] When confronted with the evidence, Abbasbayli denied wrongdoing, claimed that he was being framed, and did not provide a plausible explanation.[iv]
The Court found that Fiera had conducted an adequate investigation, giving Abbasbayli multiple opportunities to explain the discrepancies.[v] It concluded that the employees used each other’s timecards to cover for periods when they were not working and expressly characterized this conduct as “time theft.”[vi] The Court held that Abbasbayli’s conduct went “to the heart of the employment relationship” and that Fiera could not be expected to continue its relationship with him in these circumstances.[vii] Abbasbayli knew that his timecard was required to be accurate and truthful, knew that he was not permitted to use another employee’s timecard, and owed his employer a duty to be honest and forthright.[viii] The Court therefore found that Fiera had just cause to terminate Abbasbayli without notice.[ix]
Wilsher v. Olympic Wholesale
In Wilsher v. Olympic Wholesale, Willsher was a night-shift supervisor who had worked for Olympic Wholesale for more than 17 years but was terminated after his employer discovered that he had been “topping up” employees’ hours.[x] As an unwritten but common practice, employees were sometimes permitted to leave early after completing their work, and supervisors would adjust their timesheets so that they were paid for their full shifts.[xi] Olympic alleged that this practice constituted “fraudulent activity and time theft.”[xii]
The Court reached a different result here than the conclusion in Abbasbayli. The evidence established that the practice of editing employee hours had been occurring for approximately 19 years and had been followed by all of the night-shift supervisors.[xiii] Willsher had been trained to perform the practice, did not attempt to conceal the adjustments he made, and never personally benefited from such practices.[xiv] The Court emphasized that this context matters when determining whether misconduct warrants dismissal for cause and concluded that Olympic had not established just cause for dismissal.[xv]
The difference between the two cases and the conclusions of whether just cause was established or not is how the conduct of the employee and the events at issue affect the relationship between the employee and their employer. Dishonesty can harm an employment relationship because honesty may be a necessary condition to an employment agreement and it may directly conflict with the employee’s obligation to their employer.[xvi] Willsher was not dishonest as an employee and made no attempts to conceal the changes he made on time cards.[xvii] On the contrary, Abbasbayli was not honest or forthcoming, which is why the court found that his conduct went “to the heart of the employment relationship” and that “Fiera could not be expected to continue its relationship with [Abbasbayli] under these circumstances”.[xviii]
Bell Canada and the “Swipe-and-Go” Controversy
The discussion regarding the distinction between what constitutes “time-theft” or not is a timely one. In 2026, Bell Canada terminated almost 50 employees for engaging in “swipe-and-go” practices that violated its post-pandemic return-to-office policy (using their access cards to register their office attendance and then leaving), in other words, the “deliberate and repeated falsification of workplace attendance”. The former employees are now suing Bell for wrongful termination, maintaining that the office attendance quotas for which they were fired existed on paper but were not enforced by managers.[xix] Additionally, the claim reportedly relies on documents provided by a whistleblower that allegedly contain a plan to reduce employees by a fixed number per office, pointing to economic motivations for the terminations. Bell’s position is that the terminations were justified due to the misrepresented attendance constituting code of conduct breaches, that each dismissal followed a thorough investigation, and that managers who condoned these practices were also dismissed.[xx]
This pending issue provides a useful illustration of the risks employers face when disciplining employees for alleged time or attendance misconduct. Important considerations include what the employees were actually required to do, whether the rules were clearly communicated, whether the conduct was prohibited or previously tolerated, how consistently the rules were enforced, and whether the investigations were fair and genuinely directed at the alleged misconduct.
Key Takeaways
Important takeaways for employers and employees regarding “time theft” in the workplace and how courts will interpret such types of cases include:
- Employers should have clear written policies explaining what employees are required to do when recording hours and attending the workplace.
- If such policies are put in place, employers (along with managers and supervisors) should consistently apply the rules to employees.
- Employers should conduct a thorough investigation before termination. Employers should gather objective evidence, allow the employee to respond, and investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged misconduct. Abbasbayli demonstrates the value of a thorough investigation supported by independent evidence.
- Employers should consider the workplace context. Wilsher demonstrates that conduct that appears to be “time theft” on paper may not justify termination where it was a longstanding practice followed by other employees or supervisors.
- Employers should assess whether the conduct of the employee is worthy of a “summary” dismissal, and if not, the employer should provide progressive discipline to warn their employee to change behaviour before alleging cause.
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[i] Abbasbayli v. Fiera Foods Company, 2025 ONSC 3240 [hereinafter Abbasbayli] at paras 1-2.
[ii] Abbasbayli at para 18.
[iii] Abbasbayli at paras 19-22.
[iv] Abbasbayli at para 25.
[v] Abbasbayli at para 42.
[vi] Abbasbayli at para 46.
[vii] Abbasbayli at para 54.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Abbasbayli at para 60.
[x] Wilsher v. Olympic Wholesale, 2026 ONSC 3620 [hereinafter Wilsher] at paras 1 and 54-55.
[xi] Wilsher at paras 11-17.
[xii] Wilsher at paras 3 and 104.
[xiii] Wilsher at para 107.
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Wilsher at paras 108-117.
[xvi] Wilsher at para 95.
[xvii] Wilsher at para 107.
[xviii] Abbasbayli at para 54.
[xix] Jean-Nicolas Reyt, “The Sneaky Rise of Office Attendance Fraud” (16 July 2026), online: https://macleans.ca/work/the-sneaky-rise-of-office-attendance-fraud/.
[xx] Anis Heydari & Abby Hughes, “Bell fires employees it claims falsified attendance records, but some deny it” (7 May 2026), online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bell-fires-employees-work-from-office-9.7191118.