James v. Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, 2013 HRTO 833

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Keron James Applicant

-and-

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, Frances Lord and CSH Wenleigh LTC Inc. Respondents

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Jennifer Scott Date: May 16, 2013 Citation: 2013 HRTO 833 Indexed as: James v. Workplace Safety and Insurance Board

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS

Keron James, Applicant Krishna Badrinarayan, Representative

Workplace Safety Insurance Board and Frances Lord, Respondents Greg Bullen, Counsel

CSH Wenleigh LTC Inc. Respondent Pamela Leiper, Counsel

Introduction

1This is an Application filed on September 2, 2011 under s. 34 of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”). The applicant alleges that she was discriminated against on the basis of her race and disability in a return to work meeting attended by representatives of her employer CSH Wenleigh LTC Inc. (“Wenleigh”) and Frances Lord (“Lord”), a return to work specialist with the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (“WSIB”). A hearing in this matter has been scheduled for June 3 and 4, 2013.

2The applicant has filed a request to bifurcate the hearing and deal first with the liability of the WSIB and Lord, and if their liability is established, to have a further hearing to address the liability of Wenleigh.

3This Application concerns a single event – a return to work meeting on September 10, 2010. Lord and representatives of Wenleigh attended the meeting. The conduct of the attendees at this meeting is in issue in this case and both Wenleigh and the WSIB are entitled to be present to hear all of the evidence concerning this meeting. I am not persuaded that there is any compelling reason to depart from the general practice of hearing all of the evidence at the same time and making findings on all of the allegations at the conclusion of the evidence. For this reason, the applicant’s request to bifurcate the hearing is denied.

4Counsel for the WSIB and Lord has advised that Lord is unable to attend the hearing on June 3 and 4, 2013 and has requested an additional hearing date in October 2013 to permit Lord to attend. Lord no longer works with the WSIB and has commenced employment in Los Angeles. The WSIB has advised that Lord would have difficulty getting sufficient time off work to attend the hearing in June. The applicant objects and states Lord should be called first because this case focuses primarily on Lord’s conduct.

5The respondents are entitled to call their evidence in the order in which they choose. The parties are expected to come to the hearing in June prepared to call their evidence concerning the one meeting that is in issue clearly and succinctly. It is anticipated that the June hearing dates will be used to hear the evidence of the parties’ witnesses, with the exception of Lord. At the conclusion of the evidence on June 4, 2013, a further date will be set to hear Lord’s evidence.

ORDER

6The applicant’s request to bifurcate the hearing is denied.