Newbee Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 I was wondering if anyone had experience with, or knowledge about breaking a ROS contract in BC. How about in other provinces? How doable is it? Is there a way to breech the contract without paying the entire financial penalty (ie: "compassionate" grounds, etc)? Can the location of the ROS and financial amount to breech the contract be negotiated? What happens if you don't find a location to fulfill the ROS? Can you still do a fellowship if it's a specialty ROS? Any success stories? Any nightmare scenarios? Anyone have a reliable referral for a law firm in BC that is experienced in this domain? Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearded frog Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 8 hours ago, Newbee said: I was wondering if anyone had experience with, or knowledge about breaking a ROS contract in BC. How about in other provinces? How doable is it? Is there a way to breech the contract without paying the entire financial penalty (ie: "compassionate" grounds, etc)? Can the location of the ROS and financial amount to breech the contract be negotiated? What happens if you don't find a location to fulfill the ROS? Can you still do a fellowship if it's a specialty ROS? Any success stories? Any nightmare scenarios? Anyone have a reliable referral for a law firm in BC that is experienced in this domain? Thanks everyone! If you're thinking about applying for the IM or psych spots at UBC that have ROS with them just to break it, you're probably going to have a bad time. Some of those questions are answered on the program description page (for IM at least, you can defer ROS until after fellowship, you can do it anywhere in BC) otherwise, you can see the draft contracts here (A million dollars! Wow). They specifically say that you should have a lawyer review the contract on your behalf prior to signing. Any negotiation would have to be done prior to signing, and I doubt they would since there would be someone else happy to sign the contract and take the spot without haggling (and since it's anywhere in BC they're not going to let you do it outside the province...). There is a section on exceptional circumstances but all it says is it reserves the right to make changes on a case by case basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbee Posted April 5 Author Report Share Posted April 5 11 hours ago, bearded frog said: If you're thinking about applying for the IM or psych spots at UBC that have ROS with them just to break it, you're probably going to have a bad time. Some of those questions are answered on the program description page (for IM at least, you can defer ROS until after fellowship, you can do it anywhere in BC) otherwise, you can see the draft contracts here (A million dollars! Wow). They specifically say that you should have a lawyer review the contract on your behalf prior to signing. Any negotiation would have to be done prior to signing, and I doubt they would since there would be someone else happy to sign the contract and take the spot without haggling (and since it's anywhere in BC they're not going to let you do it outside the province...). There is a section on exceptional circumstances but all it says is it reserves the right to make changes on a case by case basis. Thanks for taking the time to reply, bearded frog. Much appreciated. Most of my questions were based on the sample contract that you linked. I wonder how many people have successfully challenged the ROS in court. Or how many have negotiated settlements at the end of their training. Contracts can be considered overly restrictive and then don't really stand up in court. I think that the ROS contracts have been a huge point of contention for IMGs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearded frog Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 4 hours ago, Newbee said: Thanks for taking the time to reply, bearded frog. Much appreciated. Most of my questions were based on the sample contract that you linked. I wonder how many people have successfully challenged the ROS in court. Or how many have negotiated settlements at the end of their training. Contracts can be considered overly restrictive and then don't really stand up in court. I think that the ROS contracts have been a huge point of contention for IMGs. Not a lawyer so no idea, but I imagine the contract has been drawn up by lawyers in a way that the law would not find them overly restrictive. And hence them wanting you to have your own lawyer to review so that they can say you knew what you were signing up for. I did a quick search on Canlii for "Return of service" and it looks like there is some active litigation in BC on behalf of CSAs. However there are a few cases from Ontario where the contracts were upheld, although the law and contracts are obviously different there. Newbee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbee Posted April 5 Author Report Share Posted April 5 1 hour ago, bearded frog said: Not a lawyer so no idea, but I imagine the contract has been drawn up by lawyers in a way that the law would not find them overly restrictive. And hence them wanting you to have your own lawyer to review so that they can say you knew what you were signing up for. I did a quick search on Canlii for "Return of service" and it looks like there is some active litigation in BC on behalf of CSAs. However there are a few cases from Ontario where the contracts were upheld, although the law and contracts are obviously different there. Wow. Thanks for going the extra mile to check Canlii. Never heard of that - very useful. The ROS contracts in Ontario are very fair in regards to location (anywhere except GTA/brampton, etc, and Ottawa) but also buyout (50k/year). That's very reasonable compared to BC, which could easily be considered excessively severe/unfair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BalkanRelations Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 4 minutes ago, Newbee said: Wow. Thanks for going the extra mile to check Canlii. Never heard of that - very useful. The ROS contracts in Ontario are very fair in regards to location (anywhere except GTA/brampton, etc, and Ottawa) but also buyout (50k/year). That's very reasonable compared to BC, which could easily be considered excessively severe/unfair. Yeah the BC ones look ridiculous in terms of both the buyout amount and also seem vague in terms of restrictions on whether you would be able to complete a fellowship before your ROS kicking in. Newbee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearded frog Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 22 hours ago, Newbee said: Wow. Thanks for going the extra mile to check Canlii. Never heard of that - very useful. The ROS contracts in Ontario are very fair in regards to location (anywhere except GTA/brampton, etc, and Ottawa) but also buyout (50k/year). That's very reasonable compared to BC, which could easily be considered excessively severe/unfair. I don't know about first round IMG spots but for the current second round spots there are no location restrictions, you just have to work in BC. 22 hours ago, BalkanRelations said: Yeah the BC ones look ridiculous in terms of both the buyout amount and also seem vague in terms of restrictions on whether you would be able to complete a fellowship before your ROS kicking in. The program description for the current second round IM spots with return of service explicitly say it's delayed if you do a fellowship. Newbee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BalkanRelations Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 1 minute ago, bearded frog said: I don't know about first round IMG spots but for the current second round spots there are no location restrictions, you just have to work in BC. The program description for the current second round IM spots with return of service explicitly say it's delayed if you do a fellowship. True - looks like it is program dependent then Newbee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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