Rocca v. Peel District School Board, 2009 HRTO 453

Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario

B E T W E E N:

Matthew Rocca by his litigation guardian, Nick Rocca

Applicant

-and-

Peel District School Board, John Stegeman, Tony Pontes and Shirley-Ann Teal

Respondents

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Kaye Joachim

Date: April 16, 2009

Citation: 2009 HRTO 453

Indexed as: Rocca v. Peel District School Board

1This is an Application filed September 5, 2008 under section 53(3) of Part VI of the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the "Code"). The Case Resolution Conference in this matter is scheduled for April 27 and 28, 2009. The purpose of this Interim Decision is to address the applicant's request to add parties. The parties were advised by the Registrar-Transition that the Request to add parties was denied, with reasons to follow. These are my reasons.

2On April 8, 2009, the applicant filed a Request to add 11 people as personal respondents to the Application: a School Psychologist; a Board Psychologist; the Board's Chief Psychologist; four teachers; a School Secretary; a Vice-Principal; a School Support Person; and a Behavioural Teaching Assistant.

3The basis of the Request is that the original complaint form only permitted three spaces to name personal respondents, the persons referred to have evidence relevant to the issues in dispute, were acting in the scope of their employment and therefore the corporate respondent is liable for their actions.

4The transitional provisions of the Code are intended to deal with the subject matter of complaints filed with the Commission prior to June 30, 2008. In my view, the legislative intention as set out in the transition provisions is that section 53(3) applications should be dealt with in a highly expeditious manner. To that end, the Tribunal developed Rules to foster a fair, just and highly expeditious process. In particular, Rule 6.3 states:

Applications made in accordance with these Rules must be based on the subject matter of the complaint or amended complaint filed at the Commission and the Tribunal will not entertain preliminary requests to add grounds, expand the subject matter of the complaint or add parties to the Application.

5In my view, it would detract from the expeditious nature of the proceedings to permit the applicant to add eleven personal respondents at this stage of the proceedings, less than three weeks before the scheduled hearing. If, as the applicant alleges, these persons were employees of or acting on behalf of the corporate respondent and their actions bind the corporate respondent, there is no need to add them as personal respondents. Their actions and inactions may still be considered by the Member hearing this Case Resolution Conference, as appropriate.

6The applicant's Request to add personal respondents is denied.