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Thompson v. Liquor Control Board of Ontario, 2010 HRTO 648

March 24, 2010

Thompson v. Liquor Control Board of Ontario, 2010 HRTO 648

Case Summary

The applicant requested an adjournment of a scheduled teleconference due to a medical appointment and a court family access arrangement. The Tribunal denied the request, noting that the applicant had known of the hearing date for over a month and provided insufficient details to justify granting an adjournment so close to the scheduled date.

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Lee Thompson

Applicant

-and-

Liquor Control Board of Ontario

and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union

Respondents

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Eric Whist

Date: March 24, 2010

Citation: 2010 HRTO 648

Indexed as: Thompson v. Liquor Control Board of Ontario

[1] In this Application made under section 34 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19 as amended (the “Code”), the applicant alleges discrimination in employment on the basis of race, colour, ancestry, disability, and family status as well as reprisal. In an Interim Decision dated September 11, 2009, 2009 HRTO 1457, the Tribunal ordered that a teleconference be held in order to consider the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s (“LCBO”) request to dismiss the Application. This Interim Decision addresses the applicant’s request for an adjournment of this teleconference.

REQUEST TO ADJOURN

[2] The Tribunal sent the parties a “Notice of Conference Call”” on February 8, 2010 scheduling the conference call for April 1, 2010 to begin at 10:00 A.M. In a letter received by the Tribunal on March 22, 2010 the applicant asks for an adjournment. The letter states:

Please be advised due to a medical appointment that I must attend with my mother and court family access arrangement that I must keep, I will not be able to keep my appointment for April 1, 2009 [sic].

As a result I therefore respectfully request another appointment.

I apologize for any convenience.

As of the date of this Interim Decision, the Tribunal has not received responses to this request for an adjournment from the respondents.

[3] I have carefully considered the applicant’s request. However, the applicant has known of the date of the conference call hearing since early February 2010. To come forward with little more than a week before the scheduled hearing and to state, in the briefest terms, that he has two conflicts that take precedent over his proceeding before the Tribunal is not sufficiently persuasive for the Tribunal to allow his request.

[4] The applicant’s request is not helped by the fact that his letter provides so little detail. No reason has been provided to indicate why the applicant’s request for an adjournment has been made at such a late date or, more importantly, why the identified conflicts should be given greater consideration than his scheduled teleconference before the Tribunal. It is not clear why the applicant must attend a medical appointment with his mother. No reasons have been provided to indicate, for example, why the applicant, rather someone else, must assist his mother in light of the applicant’s scheduled teleconference or why an alternative date for this appointment could not have been considered. It is not clear what the court family access arrangement is that the applicant must keep or why this arrangement should take precedence over the scheduled conference call hearing.

[5] The Tribunal is committed to the fair, just and expeditious resolution of applications brought before it and the parties, both applicants and respondents, are expected to participate in this legal process in an appropriate and timely manner. This includes attending scheduled mediations, oral hearings or conference calls. Adjournments cannot be granted primarily in order to convenience parties.

[6] For all of the above reasons the applicant’s request is denied.

Dated at Toronto, this 24^th day of March, 2010.

“Signed By”

Eric Whist

Vice-chair