William Hall v. Southern Ontario Waste Inc., 2009 HRTO 816

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

William Hall

Applicant

-and-

Southern Ontario Waste Inc., Les Sanderson and Dale Selkirk

Respondents

CASE RESOLUTION CONFERENCE DECISION

Adjudicator: Mark Hart Date: June 10, 2009 Citation: 2009 HRTO 816 Indexed as: Hall v. Southern Ontario Waste

APPEARANCES BY

William Hall, Applicant ) No appearance Southern Ontario Waste Inc., ) On their own behalf Les Sanderson and Dale Selkirk, Respondents )

1This is an Application filed September 29, 2008 under section 53(3) of Part VI of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the "Code"). The underlying complaint was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission on June 19, 2007.

2On February 9, 2009, the Tribunal sent a notice to the parties confirming that the Case Resolution Conference (hearing) in this matter was scheduled to proceed in Toronto on June 9 and 10, 2009 commencing at 9:30 a.m. on each day.

3On June 1, 2009, the Tribunal received correspondence from the respondents indicating that no documents had been received from the applicant in accordance with his disclosure obligations under the Tribunal's Rules. As a result, on June 2, 2009, a Case Assessment Direction was issued by the Tribunal stating that the applicant had not filed a statement of additional facts and remedy, made disclosure or filed a list of witnesses or a brief description of what the witnesses will say, all of which is required by the Tribunal's Rules. The applicant was directed to advise the Tribunal in writing by noon on Friday, June 5, 2009 whether he intended to appear for the scheduled hearing together with an explanation as to why the information required by the Tribunal's Rules had not been provided. The applicant was advised that if such confirmation was not received, he would be deemed to have abandoned his Application and it would be dismissed.

4On June 5, 2009, the Tribunal received a letter from the applicant stating that he had provided the requested remedy and a list of witnesses to the Tribunal at the mediation held on February 4, 2009, at which the respondents did not appear, and that there were no additional facts that he was relying upon and he had supplied the respondents with all materials. The applicant's letter also stated that he was enrolled in training with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board each day from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Brantford, Ontario and that he could not be excused from this training until its completion in mid-June. As a result, the applicant stated that he could not attend the hearing scheduled for June 9 and 10, 2009 and he requested that the hearing be re-scheduled.

5In response, on June 5, 2009, the Tribunal issued an Interim Decision, 2009 HRTO 780, denying the request for the hearing to be re-scheduled. As stated in this Interim Decision at para. 6:

The reasons for the Request do not constitute exceptional circumstances that would permit an adjournment. The applicant has known since February 2009 that the hearing was scheduled in June 2009 and had the opportunity to request a rescheduling. It is inevitable that the scheduling of hearing days will create some degree of conflict with work or training requirements in many cases. This is simply part of the adjudication process and does not constitute the kind of exceptional circumstances that would warrant granting an adjournment request of this nature.

6As a result, the Tribunal's Interim Decision denied the applicant's adjournment request and advised the applicant that if he failed to attend the hearing the Tribunal may consider that he has abandoned his Application and it may be dismissed.

7In order to ensure that the applicant was made aware of the Tribunal's Interim Decision, in light of the short time before the hearing was scheduled to commence, the Tribunal attempted to contact the applicant at the telephone number that he had provided on the afternoon of Friday, June 5, 2009. A message was left with a woman who answered the phone and described herself as the applicant's girlfriend, asking her to inform the applicant that his request for an adjournment had been denied and that a decision would follow. Later on that same afternoon, after the Tribunal's decision denying the adjournment had been released, Tribunal staff again called the applicant's phone number and left two messages on his answering machine reading paras. 6 to 9 of the Tribunal's decision. In the course of leaving these messages, which required two calls due to the length of the message, Tribunal staff again spoke to the applicant's girlfriend and told her again that the request for an adjournment had been denied.

8On June 9, 2009, I appeared at the hearing at 9:30 a.m. and the respondents were in attendance. The applicant did not appear. I stood the matter down until 10:00 a.m. to see if the applicant appeared. When the applicant still had not appeared by then, I advised the respondents that, in the absence of the applicant notifying the Tribunal of some exceptional circumstances that caused him to fail to appear, it was my intention to dismiss the Application.

9A Tribunal application is a legal proceeding commenced by the applicant. It is the applicant's responsibility to attend the hearing and provide evidence in support of the allegations raised in the application. In the absence of such evidence, the Tribunal is unable to proceed with the application and there is no onus or responsibility on the respondents to provide evidence in response to allegations where the applicant has failed to appear at the hearing and no evidence has been provided by the applicant in support of his allegations.

10In the absence of any correspondence or communication from the applicant to explain his failure to appear at the hearing and as a result of his failure to appear and provide any evidence in support of his allegations, the Application is dismissed.