Sitting in his lawyer’s office in downtown Toronto, Casado claimed that he had been blindsided by it all, that there had been no complaints about his performance, including any alleged tardiness. He received two weeks pay and was shown the door—the day after he was required to train his replacement. Since then, he says he has become the butt of ridicule on the internet and unable to find work.
“It gets me down to be quite honest with you,” he said.
“I haven’t able to sleep properly, haven’t been able to eat. It’s affected me in really an all encompassing way.”
He says the choice of clothes was not his. CNN was concerned about his habit of wearing white shirts, which can be problematic on camera.
“The way I was dressed on CNN was because CNN wanted me to dress that way,” he said. “They physically took me to the store, took out their AMEX and said you’re going to wear this, this and this.”
His lawyer, Muneeza Sheikh of Levitt LLP, told Global News that it is not a straightforward wrongful dismissal suit.
“The case actually relates to a violation of his human rights. There’s been defamatory and slanderous remarks made about him by his ex employer,” she said.
“So that has really widened the scope from what should have been a simple wrongful termination case.”
Sheikh and Casado were still working on the details but she said, given the circumstances, there would certainly be a call for punitive damages and a claim that would be in the millions of dollars.
“Really the sky is the limit at this point.”
Global News contacted uFly for comment and the firm responded in an email: “We are not aware of any such lawsuit being contemplated and are not in a position to comment at this time.”
