HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Long Vo Applicant
-and-
Complex Services Inc. o/a Fallsview Casino Respondent
INTERIM DECISION
Adjudicator: Mark Hart Date: March 29, 2010 Citation: 2010 HRTO 681 Indexed as: Vo v. Complex Services
1This Interim Decision deals with a Request for Order During Proceedings filed by the applicant on March 4, 2010 seeking certain orders requiring production of certain documents and information and seeking to require the respondent to call certain individuals as witnesses. The respondent filed a Response to Request for Order on March 18, 2010.
2The applicant then filed a Response to Request for Order on March 25, 2010, in which he appears to reiterate his request that a particular individual be called as a witness at the hearing and which also attached what appears to be his response to materials filed by the respondent and certain additional documents. The applicant did not file a statement of delivery indicating that he had served this material on counsel for the respondent, nor is there any indication that this material was copied to respondent counsel. The applicant is ordered to serve this material on respondent counsel immediately and, in any event, within five days of the date of this Interim Decision. I nonetheless have considered this material in making my decision, and this material does not change my disposition of the applicant’s requests.
3The applicant first requests either that an individual identified as “Carie Papper” (who appears to be correctly named Carrie Papez) be added as a party to this Application or that she be required to be called to testify as a witness. There is no basis to support adding Ms. Papez as a respondent to this proceeding, as her only involvement appears to be that she signed a performance evaluation of the applicant. No allegation of discrimination has been made against her.
4With regard to the applicant’s request that Ms. Papez be required to appear as a witness, it is the responsibility of the parties to arrange for the attendance at the hearing of witnesses whom they wish to testify. If a proposed witness does not agree to attend voluntarily, the witness’s attendance can be required by serving her with a summons to witness, which can be obtained from the Tribunal’s Registrar. However, in this instance, it appears that the applicant merely wishes to have Ms. Papez testify to confirm the content of his performance evaluation. If all that is intended is to have Ms. Papez confirm that she prepared this document and to confirm the contents of this document, then the attendance of Ms. Papez is not required for this purpose. If, however, the applicant wishes to elicit some other relevant evidence from Ms. Papez, then it is his responsibility to arrange for her attendance.
5I do note that the Tribunal does have the power pursuant to Rule 1.7(k) of its Rules regarding Section 34 Applications, which are incorporated into the Tribunal’s Rules regarding Transitional Applications under s. 53(5) of the Code by Rule 11.1, to “on the request of a party, direct another party to adduce evidence or produce a witness when that person is reasonably within that party’s control”. However, prior to exercising this power, I would at least need to be satisfied that Ms. Papez’s evidence is necessary and relevant to the matters at issue in this Application, and on the basis of the material filed to date I am not so satisfied.
6The applicant also requests production of all of his personal documents at Fallsview Casino. The respondent has indicated that all arguably relevant documents from the applicant’s Employee Department file and Human Resources File already have been disclosed to him. As a result, in the absence of any specific evidence that any particular document is missing from this disclosure, there is no basis to make the order requested.
7The applicant also requests statistical data regarding the proportion of full-time Table Games Supervisors and full-time Table Game Pit Managers who are of Asian descent. This information has been provided by the respondent in its Response to the Request for Order. Accordingly, no order is required.
8The applicant requests that Jason March and Robert Kipps be called as witnesses at the hearing in this matter. The respondent already has notified the applicant and the Tribunal that it intends to call these two individuals as witnesses, and hence no order is required in this regard.
9Finally, the applicant requests that the person who made the decision to eliminate his position testify at the hearing. The respondent already has provided notice to the applicant and to the Tribunal that it intends to call its Director of Human Resources to testify, among other things, to the restructuring that resulted in the elimination of the applicant’s position and a further witness who was Department Manager, Table Games at the relevant time, who will testify, among other things, that she was asked sometime in 2006 to identify the five lowest performing supervisors between the two casinos and that the applicant was one of the five associates identified as lowest ranking. The evidence to be given by these witnesses is sufficiently responsive to the applicant’s request, such that no order is required.
10As a result, the applicant’s requests are dismissed.
Dated at Toronto, this 29th day of March, 2010.
“Signed by”
_______________________________
Mark Hart Vice-chair