The regulator called her breaches minor, but her bank fired her for cause anyway
A financial planner fired for cause by one of Canada's largest banks has won her wrongful dismissal case after a judge found the bank manufactured misconduct to force out a top performer it had no grounds to dismiss.
Royal Bank of Canada and Royal Mutual Funds Inc. must pay their former financial planner more than $2.6 million, Justice Casullo of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in a decision released June 30, 2026. The award covered 16 months' notice worth $313,333, $1,919,272 for lost earning capacity, $150,000 in aggravated damages and $250,000 in punitive damages.
A top performer and a souring relationship
Royal Bank of Canada and Royal Mutual Funds Inc. must pay their former financial planner more than $2.6 million, Justice Casullo of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in a decision released June 30, 2026. The award covered 16 months' notice worth $313,333, $1,919,272 for lost earning capacity, $150,000 in aggravated damages and $250,000 in punitive damages.
The planner had spent nearly 12 years with the bank and was, by management's own recognition, a standout. She ranked first in the Greater Toronto Area and third nationally, and her book of business was valued at $150 million. Trouble began after a 2016 branch transfer, when she resisted handing off high-net-worth clients she believed her new market could not replace.
Her performance reviews turned negative for the first time, and after months of disputes over compensation and client transitions she filed a formal complaint alleging retaliation by her managers. Justice Casullo found the bank's employee relations advisor was, at the same time, both crafting the bank's response to that complaint and coaching the very managers it targeted.
An investigation that went looking for cause
The path to dismissal started with a colleague who had processed trades for the planner's clients. A compliance check flagged the arrangement, and the bank opened an internal investigation. Justice Casullo found it quickly outgrew that narrow issue, expanding into a review of the planner's emails, calendar and even her personal bank account.
The bank ultimately alleged three grounds for cause: forwarding two work emails to her personal account, processing client trades before obtaining signed authorization, and asking clients to backdate documents. The judge noted an investigator had been asked to search the planner's messages for anything "incriminating," and concluded the exercise lacked impartiality, finding the bank's investigation "was more a form of ammunition gathering."
The planner was fired on April 20, 2018, for what the termination letter called deliberate actions that contradicted bank policy. The bank also filed a regulatory Notice of Termination reporting a for-cause dismissal. That filing, Justice Casullo found, followed her into the job market, and several would-be employers withdrew offers once they learned of it.
A regulator's view and a multimillion-dollar bill
The national mutual fund regulator reviewed the same conduct and called the breaches "minor in nature," issuing only a cautionary letter. Justice Casullo found the backdating the bank treated as falsification was in fact a longstanding practice the planner had been taught by RBC staff, and one the bank could not tie to any written policy prohibiting it.
Justice Casullo found the two forwarded emails were work-related, deleted after use and never shared, and that the disputed trades had been authorized by clients who confirmed as much. She found none of it amounted to cause and ruled the dismissal wrongful. She ordered the regulatory notice corrected, having found it was the sole barrier keeping the planner out of the financial industry for eight years.
On top of lost pay and earning capacity, Justice Casullo awarded aggravated and punitive damages for how the bank handled the dismissal. The employer, she found, had well-established alternatives short of dismissal and chose none of them. Instead, in Justice Casullo's words, "RBC went nuclear, looking for infractions and manufacturing violations where none existed."
