Leckie v. Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, 2009 HRTO 518

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Fred Leckie

Applicant

-and-

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board,

John Moffat, Tim Pieprzak and Leanne Sneddon

Respondents

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Andrew M. Diamond

Date: April 28, 2009

Citation: 2009 HRTO 518

Indexed As: Leckie v. Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS BY

Fred Leckie, Applicant ) On His Own Behalf

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, ) Jane Gooding,

John Moffat, Tim Pieprzak ) Counsel

and Leanne Sneddon, Respondents )

introduction

1This Interim Decision deals with the applicant’s Request for production of various documents in the possession of the respondent, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (the “School Board”).

2The applicant alleges that he has been discriminated against on the basis of disability, denied accommodation and suffered retribution through harassment in response to his request for accommodation.

3On March 16, 2009, the applicant requested that the Tribunal order the School Board to produce the following three categories of documents:

1. All high school cleaning schedules (Head Caretaker, Caretaker, Assistant Caretaker) except Saltfleet High, Waterdown High, Mountain View and Parkview;

2. the student population for the schools listed in 1 above; and

3. the square footage of the schools listed in 1 above.

4The School Board responded to the request by way of written submissions dated April 8, 2009. In addition to its submissions on the relevancy of the listed documents, which I will deal with in more detail below, the School Board argues that “the request is extremely onerous and overbroad.” It is the School Board’s submission that “such a request would involve manually compiling work schedules of over one hundred employees.”

5On April 20, 2009, in response to the School Board’s submissions with respect to the onerous nature of the productions, the applicant revised his request and limited it to eight listed schools.

Law, Argument and Analysis

6In Dungus v. Toronto Police Services Board 2009 HRTO 389, the Tribunal noted:

The standard for disclosure in a human rights proceeding is ‘arguable relevance’. It has been stated that this is not a particularly high bar. However, there must be some relevance and the party seeking production must demonstrate a nexus between the information or document sought and the issues in dispute before the Tribunal.

7In his April 20, 2009 submissions, the applicant argues that:

The cleaning schedules are “arguably relevant” because the work per caretaker has to be as equal as possible across the Board, and if it is not, the extra time available can go to the overloaded school. If the employees at those schools have injuries and want to protect them, and prevent new ones, and work in a safe work place, then extra time can be used for this purpose.

8In response, the School Board submits that there are two issues before the Tribunal: (1) Did the School Board appropriately accommodate the applicant by modifying his schedule? and (2) Did the harassment and retribution alleged by the applicant in fact occur? The School Board argues that the requested documents are not arguably relevant to either of the two issues before the Tribunal.

9This is not a case where the respondents are saying that they could not accommodate the applicant. If that were the case, then perhaps the available work and workload of all of the School Board’s facilities might be “arguably relevant”. However, in this Application the Tribunal will have to decide whether a specific program of accommodation was reasonable.

Decision

10I am not satisfied that, in this particular case, the applicant has demonstrated that the extensive records he is seeking are arguably relevant to the issues in dispute. Therefore, the applicant’s request for disclosure of the documents listed in paragraph 3 above is denied.

11I am not seized.