About

Bardal Factors publishes free tools built on a database of reported Canadian wrongful dismissal decisions, so that anyone facing a severance question can see what courts have actually done.

The database

The tools draw on 3,252 reported decisions spanning 1955 to 2026, covering every Canadian jurisdiction except Quebec. Each record captures the notice period awarded together with the Bardal factors the court had before it: the employee’s age, length of service, occupation, and the jurisdiction deciding the case.

Where a court awarded an additional amount for bad faith in the manner of dismissal — a Wallace extension — the database records the underlying reasonable notice figure, not the enhanced total. The tools therefore estimate common law reasonable notice, before any such extension.

The two tools

The Bardal Index reports. It finds the decided cases closest to a given set of facts and shows the range of notice awarded across them, with each case cited and linked to CanLII. Everything it reports is a matter of record.

BardalGPT predicts. A statistical model trained on the same decisions returns the single most likely award with a calibrated range around it. Its accuracy was measured by training only on older decisions and testing against later ones the model had never seen — repeated at five separate cut-off dates. On that test it averages 2.4 months of error, against 3.2 months for the familiar “one month per year of service” rule of thumb.

How the tools run

Both tools run entirely inside your browser. The case data and the model are downloaded to your device and everything is computed there. Nothing you type is transmitted to this site or stored anywhere. There is no account, no tracking of your inputs, and no record of your searches.

Corrections

The database is compiled by hand from reported decisions and will contain errors. If you find a case recorded incorrectly, or a decision that should be included, please get in touch — corrections are welcome and will be made.