Nash v. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, 2013 HRTO 960

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Lisa Nash Applicant

-and-

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and Barry Armstrong Respondents

A N D B E T W E E N:

Lisa Nash Applicant

-and-

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Respondent

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Ena Chadha Date: May 30, 2013 Citation: 2013 HRTO 960 Indexed as: Nash v. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS

Lisa Nash, Applicant Self-represented

Ottawa-Carlton District School Board and Barry Armstrong, Respondents Roger Mills, Counsel

1Application 2009-04195-I was filed on November 25, 2009 under section 34 of Part IV of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended, alleging discrimination with respect to employment because of disability. Application 2012-12885-I was filed on November 1, 2012, alleging reprisal by the same institutional respondent as named in the first Application.

2This Interim Decision deals with the applicant’s request for disclosure and production of the complete contents of an Investigative Report prepared in response to her workplace complaint. The applicant submits that the Report is relevant to her allegations of reprisal.

3The respondents oppose disclosure and production of the Investigative Report. The respondents submits that the contents of the Report are not relevant to the scope or timeframe of the Application as before the Tribunal.

4By of Interim Decision 2012 HRTO 2299, the Tribunal granted the applicant’s request to amend her Application to include allegations of reprisal and incidents from October 2009 to June 2011 as described in the applicant’s March 19, 2012 Request for Order During Proceedings.

Decision

5The applicant filed her request for production of the investigation report arising out of her March 24, 2011 workplace complaint in January 2012. The respondents opposed this request in February 2012 and argued that the subject matter of the investigation report did not fall within the scope or timeframe of the Application as it existed at that time.

6The Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure (“Rules”) sets out the obligations and requirements that parties must satisfy with respect to exchange of arguably relevant information and production of anticipated hearing evidence.

7Rule 16 requires that parties to an Application will exchange arguably relevant documents 21 days after the Notice of Hearing is issued by the Tribunal, which has not yet occurred in this case. Rule 17 requires parties to exchange witness lists and summary of expected hearing evidence no later than 45 days prior to the first scheduled hearing day. Copies of documents intended to be relied upon in the hearing are required to be exchanged at this time.

8Given the Tribunal’s December 2012 Interim Decision amending the Application and the second Application, the document sought by the applicant may potentially be part of the respondents’ arguably relevant disclosure pursuant to Rule 16 and/or hearing production pursuant to Rule 17.

9The Tribunal has repeatedly stated that it will not exercise its discretion to allow for early production of documents, except in exceptional circumstances. The applicant has not identified any exceptional circumstances in this case. The applicant has offered no reasonable basis why an exception should be made by the Tribunal to require arguably relevant disclosure in advance of these Rules. Consequently, the Tribunal must deny the applicant’s request for disclosure and production because the request is premature.

10The applicant’s request for production and disclosure is denied at this stage of the Tribunal’s process.

11I am not seized.