Silva v. Royal Bank of Canada: A $2.3 Million Lesson On Botched Workplace Investigations

When RBC dismissed financial planner Ravini Silva for cause in 2018, it accused her of three things: emailing confidential client information to her personal account, processing trades without proper client authorization, and instructing clients to backdate signatures. Eight years, twenty-six witnesses, and a 26-day trial later, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that none of it added up to cause — and awarded Ms. Silva more than $2.3 million in damages, including a punitive damages award of $250,000.

Silva v. Royal Bank of Canada, 2026 ONSC 3841, is a rare full-length trial decision on just cause dismissal in the financial services sector, and it reads as a case study in how not to conduct a workplace investigation. For employers, it is essential reading.

RBC terminated Ms. Silva, a 47-year-old financial planner with almost 12 years of service and a $150-million book of business, on three grounds:

• Forwarding confidential information to her personal email account on two occasions.
• Processing withdrawal transactions for clients without meeting them in person or obtaining prior written authorization.
• Backdating trade documents so client signatures matched the original trade date.

RBC’s regulatory affiliate, Royal Mutual Funds Inc. (“RMFI”), reported the matter to the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (now part of CIRO) and filed a Notice of Termination (“NOT”) with the National Registration Database, effectively broadcasting the cause allegations to every future employer in the securities industry.

Justice Casullo devoted significant attention to the eighteen months preceding the investigation. A branch transition that Ms. Silva resisted led to a series of “Does Not Meet” performance ratings, denied compensation escalations, and a formal retaliation complaint filed through counsel in November 2017 — a complaint aimed squarely at the same managers who, weeks later, asked Corporate Investigation Services (“CIS”) to open a file on her.

The court found that management was actively looking for grounds to end the relationship well before the investigation began, pointing to internal emails discussing “parting ways” months before Ms. Silva was ever interviewed.

This is the heart of the decision. Justice Casullo found that CIS’s inquiry was not a genuine search for facts, but what the court repeatedly called “ammunition gathering.” The investigator was directed to comb through Ms. Silva’s personal bank transactions and messaging history for anything “incriminating,” yet:

• No client was contacted to confirm or dispute a transaction, even though three clients later testified at trial and corroborated Ms. Silva’s account.
• Ms. Silva was denied access to her calendar and diary before her interview, then questioned about transactions from a year earlier without them.
• The termination letter and the NOT failed to mention the backdating allegation — RBC’s most serious claim only surfaced after the interview.

The Court reiterated that an employer conducting a workplace investigation must gather all relevant information and consider both sides of the story. An investigation is not held to a standard of perfection, but it must be adequate — and this one, the court found, was neither thorough, fair, nor contextual.

Applying the contextual approach from McKinley v. BC Tel, 2001 SCC 38, the court assessed each allegation on its own facts:

• The emails were sent for legitimate work purposes, deleted shortly after, and never shared with anyone. The court found this breach real but “entirely trivial” — not proportionate to dismissal without notice.
• The trades were supported by written client instructions, and the clients themselves confirmed they had authorized the transactions. 
• The backdating turned out to be a documented, longstanding branch practice that multiple compliance officers had taught Ms. Silva and that management had knowingly permitted for years. RBC could not produce a single policy prohibiting it.

None of the three allegations, alone or together, met the “high, onerous burden” the law places on an employer relying on just cause — a threshold Ontario courts continue to describe as the “capital punishment” of employment law.

16 months’ reasonable notice — $313,333, based on Ms. Silva’s age, nearly 12 years of service, and character of employment.

$1,919,272 for loss of earning capacity — The Court accepted that the NOT itself, not any restrictive covenant or market condition, was the reason Ms. Silva could not return to the financial services industry. Three separate recruiters testified they wanted to hire her — until they saw “terminated for cause” on her regulatory record. The Court held that a wrongful for-cause allegation that forecloses an entire regulated profession can support a stand-alone loss-of-earning-capacity award beyond the notice period.

$150,000 in aggravated damages — for mental distress, supported by medical evidence.

$250,000 in punitive damages — reserved for conduct that is a “marked departure from ordinary standards of decent behaviour.” The Court found RBC’s manager was untruthful with Ms. Silva about why CIS wanted to interview her, that the employee-relations advisor investigating her retaliation complaint was simultaneously coaching her managers on how to justify their conduct, and that RBC’s own dismissal checklist recorded — falsely — that no alternatives to termination had been considered.

RMFI was also ordered to correct the NOT on the National Registration Database.

A flawed investigation undermines cause even where some misconduct is real. Ms. Silva admitted to breaching the email policy, yet that admission did not save RBC’s cause defence, because the investigation into the more serious allegations was neither fair nor complete.

• “Cursory” review isn’t enough once regulatory consequences are on the table. Employers in regulated industries who file a METS, an NOT, or an equivalent report should be able to show their investigation actually contacted the people who could confirm or deny the allegations.
• A regulatory filing can create its own, independent damages exposure. The loss-of-earning-capacity award in this case dwarfed the notice period damages, precisely because the NOT followed Ms. Silva into every subsequent job search. Employers should treat the content of any regulatory notice with the same rigour as the termination letter itself — arguably more, since it outlives the employment relationship.
• Progressive discipline remains the safer path. The court was explicit: where conduct falls short of cause, the answer is coaching, warnings, or a without-cause termination with proper notice — not, in the court’s words, going “nuclear.”

If your organization is investigating an employee for potential just cause termination, or if you have been terminated based on allegations you believe are unfounded, the litigators at Pinto Shekib LLP can help you assess your options. 

Contact us at 416.901.9984 or info@pintoshekib.ca for a consultation.