Bella Fox

The applicant requested an order during proceedings to amend her human rights application by adding Ontario as a respondent and challenging the eligibility criteria of the Direct Funding program on the ground of disability.

Ontario consented to being added as a respondent on the sole issue of the program criteria.

The Tribunal granted the request to amend the application.

The complainant alleged that she was sexually harassed by her employer, Wilson Nuttall, while working at The Company Garden Centre.

The Board of Inquiry found that the employer engaged in a course of vexatious comment and physical conduct that was known to be unwelcome, violating sections 6(2) and 6(3)(a) of the Human Rights Code.

The harassment caused the complainant to leave her employment.

The respondents were ordered to pay $994 for lost wages, $2,500 in general damages, and interest, and were subjected to monitoring by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

The complainant alleged that her employer sexually harassed her by making sexual advances, touching her inappropriately, and engaging in offensive verbal behaviour.

The Board of Inquiry dismissed the complaint, finding the complainant's testimony to be uncorroborated and inconsistent.

The Board preferred the respondent's evidence, concluding that while the workplace language was occasionally coarse, no sexual solicitation or harassment occurred.

The complainant alleged that the respondent breached a settlement agreement resolving an earlier human rights complaint by failing to recall her with full seniority.

The settlement agreement provided that the complainant would be credited with full seniority and granted recall rights.

However, under the collective agreement, all employees laid off at the relevant time lost their seniority after six months.

The Board of Inquiry found that the settlement agreement did not exempt the complainant from the collective agreement's loss-of-seniority clause, and the respondent acted properly in rehiring her as a new employee.

The complaint was dismissed.

The Board awarded costs to the respondent on a solicitor and client basis, finding that the Commission acted irresponsibly and that false allegations of harassment and reprisals were made in bad faith, causing undue hardship to the respondent.

The complainant, who has cerebral palsy, alleged he was denied equal treatment with respect to services by the respondent restaurant and its owner.

The complainant was refused a glass of wine because the owner mistakenly believed he was intoxicated, and was subsequently escorted out of the restaurant before finishing his meal.

The Board of Inquiry found that the complainant was discriminated against because of his handicap in both respects.

The respondents were ordered to pay $500 in compensation for damage to the complainant's self-respect.

The complainant was employed by the corporate respondent to cut grass on a sod farm.

She alleged that the individual respondent, the president of the corporate respondent, sexually harassed her by making sexual advances and subsequently terminating her employment when she refused to comply.

The Board of Inquiry accepted the complainant's evidence over the respondent's, finding that the respondent made a sexual advance coupled with a threat of reprisal, and terminated her employment because she would not comply.

The Board found this conduct constituted sexual harassment contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Code and ordered the respondents to pay damages for lost wages and general damages.

The complainant, a bartender, alleged she was discriminated against on the basis of sex (pregnancy) when her employment was terminated.

The Board of Inquiry found that while discrimination because of pregnancy constitutes discrimination because of sex, the complainant's termination was strictly a cost-cutting measure by the employer.

The Board accepted evidence that the employer offered the complainant alternative employment which she refused.

The complaint was dismissed.

The complainant, a black man from Trinidad, alleged that the respondent discriminated against him by refusing to rent an apartment to him because of his race.

The complainant and his fiancée were told the rent was $350 instead of the advertised $300, and later told the apartment was rented.

Subsequent telephone inquiries by white individuals revealed the apartment was still available at $300, while an inquiry by a West Indian individual was told it was unavailable.

The Board of Inquiry found the complainant's witnesses credible and the respondent's evidence implausible, concluding that the respondent discriminated against the complainant.

The respondent was ordered to pay $350 in compensation for loss of dignity.

The complainants, two female registered nurses, were hired to share a temporary industrial nursing position at a construction site.

After two days, the employer terminated their employment and replaced them with a lesser-qualified male paramedic at a higher cost.

The employer admitted the termination was primarily because he did not want female nurses on the site for alleged safety reasons, though no evidence supported sex as a bona fide occupational qualification.

The Board of Inquiry found the employer discriminated against the complainants because of their sex and ordered the employer to pay each complainant $2,090 for lost wages and $1,000 in general damages.