Kathleen Martin

The applicant requested an adjournment of scheduled hearing dates after her counsel ceased representation and she experienced a recent illness.

The Tribunal had previously adjourned earlier dates and directed the applicant to provide detailed particulars of her efforts to retain new counsel to justify any further adjournment.

The Tribunal denied the request, finding that the applicant failed to establish exceptional circumstances, as she provided insufficient evidence of her efforts to obtain new counsel and her medical note did not indicate an inability to participate in the hearing.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging failure to accommodate and age discrimination.

The respondents failed to comply with several Tribunal directions and subsequently requested a one-year adjournment of the hearing, citing a medical note indicating that the respondent Ms. McDougall was substantially incapacitated due to a shoulder injury.

The applicant opposed the adjournment.

The Tribunal adjourned the immediate hearing date but directed the respondent to provide a more detailed medical report outlining her restrictions, limitations, and potential accommodation measures before determining the full length of the adjournment.

The applicant alleged discrimination in employment on the basis of ethnic origin and place of origin after being denied three weeks' vacation pay upon resignation.

The respondent explained that the applicant was paid a prorated portion of his vacation in accordance with a long-standing policy, and that a co-worker who received full vacation pay did so due to a managerial mistake.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing and dismissed the application, finding no reasonable prospect of success as the applicant could not point to any evidence linking the differential treatment to his ethnic or place of origin.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination on the basis of race and disability against her employer and its clinic manager.

The Tribunal considered whether to defer the application pending a related complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and whether to remove the clinic manager as a personal respondent.

The Tribunal declined to defer the application, finding insufficient overlap between the proceedings.

The Tribunal also refused to remove the individual respondent, noting that her alleged discriminatory remarks were a central issue and the corporate respondent had not assumed liability for her conduct.

The applicant filed an application alleging discrimination in employment on the basis of disability.

The application originally named an organizational respondent that subsequently requested to be removed as a party, noting it was named in error.

With the applicant's consent, the Tribunal removed the incorrectly named organizational respondent.

The Tribunal directed the application to proceed against the remaining individual and corporate respondents, ordering them to file their responses within 35 days.

The applicant filed an Application for Contravention of Settlement, seeking to set aside Minutes of Settlement reached during mediation.

The applicant alleged he signed the settlement under financial duress, misunderstood the monetary amount, and was affected by medication.

The Tribunal found that difficult financial circumstances do not amount to economic duress sufficient to vitiate a contract.

The Tribunal also found insufficient evidence regarding the applicant's medication or lack of capacity.

The application was dismissed as an abuse of process, and the settlement remained binding.

The applicants, who are spouses, filed separate human rights applications alleging discrimination in employment and housing against the corporate respondents and several individuals.

The Tribunal issued an interim decision on whether the applications should be heard together and whether the individual respondents should be removed as parties.

The Tribunal ordered the applications to be heard together due to common issues of fact and law.

The Tribunal also removed four individual respondents who were not central to the allegations, but declined to remove the vice president, whose conduct was central to the claims.

The applicant filed a human rights application against the respondent.

The respondent subsequently went into receivership, and a Notice of Stay of Proceedings was filed.

The Tribunal issued a Case Assessment Direction requiring the applicant to advise whether she intended to seek leave to continue the proceeding.

The applicant failed to respond or communicate with the Tribunal.

Consequently, the application was dismissed as abandoned.

The respondents requested an adjournment of a scheduled hearing because the individual respondent had an important personal matter.

The applicant opposed the request.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario denied the adjournment, finding that the respondents failed to provide exceptional circumstances to justify the request, as required by the Tribunal's Practice Direction.

The Tribunal also issued directions regarding several outstanding Requests for Order During Proceedings.

The applicant, who has a mental health disability, alleged discrimination with respect to services by the respondent hospital and its Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) during three separate incidents in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

She claimed she was improperly discharged without assessment, forced into assessments against her will, threatened with arrest, and that the hospital failed to properly investigate her internal complaints.

The Tribunal found that the hospital staff acted in accordance with the applicant's expressed wishes or their mandate to assess suicide risk, and that the hospital's response to her complaints was reasonable.

The application was dismissed as the applicant failed to establish that she was disadvantaged or treated adversely because of her disability.

The applicant requested reconsideration of an interim decision that denied her request to amend her application and her request for production of a CPIC file.

The Tribunal dismissed the request, noting that its rules generally only permit reconsideration of final decisions, and the applicant failed to demonstrate any compelling or extraordinary circumstances to justify reconsidering the interim rulings.

The applicant requested reconsideration of an interim decision that dismissed her human rights application against a doctor for having no reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant argued that new evidence from the subsequent hearing against the remaining respondent hospital justified reconsideration.

The Tribunal found that the new evidence was not relevant to the allegations against the doctor and that the applicant was attempting to reargue the case.

The request for reconsideration was dismissed.

The applicant sought to reactivate his human rights application, which had been deferred pending the resolution of a union grievance regarding his termination.

The grievance process concluded with an arbitrator upholding the termination.

The respondents opposed reactivation, arguing the application should be further deferred because the applicant had recently filed a duty of fair representation complaint at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

The Tribunal granted the request to reactivate, finding that the OLRB proceeding involved different legal issues (breach of the Labour Relations Act versus breach of the Human Rights Code) and that further deferral was not appropriate given the divergent issues and the age of the human rights application.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment based on disability.

The Tribunal issued a Case Assessment Direction to determine whether the applicant's status as an undischarged bankrupt affected his ability to proceed with the application.

After receiving written submissions from the parties and the Trustee in Bankruptcy, the Tribunal found that the application could continue to mediation with notice to the Trustee.

The Tribunal ordered the applicant to provide particulars of the remedy sought so the Trustee could determine its level of participation.

The applicant, a grade four student with learning disabilities, alleged discrimination when he was denied access to the Tutors in the Classroom program.

The Ministry of Education requested to be removed as a respondent, arguing that the delivery of special education services is the responsibility of school boards, not the Ministry.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing and dismissed the application against the Ministry, finding no reasonable prospect of success as the applicant failed to establish a link between the Ministry's actions and the alleged discrimination.

The applicant alleged discrimination in employment on the basis of disability after the respondent declined to rehire him.

The applicant claimed he was not hired because of a previous 'washroom problem' related to his age and need for frequent breaks.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing and dismissed the application, finding no reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant failed to establish a disability within the meaning of the Code, failed to show the respondent was aware of any such disability, and could not link the failure to hire to a prohibited ground.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment on the basis of sex and sexual solicitation or advances, claiming she was sexually harassed by a co-worker and that the employer covered it up while the union protected the co-worker.

The union requested that the application be deferred pending the conclusion of a related grievance dealing with the same issues.

The Tribunal found that the grievance proceeding dealt with substantially the same facts and issues, and that the arbitrator had jurisdiction to hear human rights issues.

The Tribunal deferred the application pending the completion of the grievance process.

The applicant, a police constable, filed a human rights application alleging discrimination on the basis of race and disability, as well as reprisal, against his employer, his union (the Association), and a third-party ability management service.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine whether the allegations against the Association had a reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal dismissed the allegations that the Association failed to assist the applicant in the accommodation process, organized a mediation meeting without his consent, and supported the use of the third-party service.

However, the Tribunal allowed the allegations regarding the denial of access to the central sick leave bank and the development of a new sick leave policy to proceed against the Association.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination on the basis of disability against Ontario Power Generation and Babcock and Wilcox Canada Ltd. The applicant consented to dismissing the application against Ontario Power Generation due to federal jurisdiction.

The Tribunal considered whether the remaining allegations against Babcock should be dismissed for delay under section 34 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal found that the initial layoff in April 2009 and a subsequent request for accommodation in July 2010 did not constitute a series of incidents.

The Tribunal dismissed the allegations relating to the April 2009 layoff due to delay, finding no good faith reason for the late filing.

The allegations relating to the July 2010 incident were permitted to proceed.

A request to defer the application pending a grievance was denied.

The applicant alleged that the Family Responsibility Office discriminated against him on the basis of disability by garnishing his disability income to enforce a spousal support order.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine if the application had a reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal found that the applicant could not establish that he was treated differently from others owing support payments based on his disability, as the garnishment stemmed from a court-ordered debt.

The application was dismissed for having no reasonable prospect of success.