HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
James LeClair
Applicant
-and-
Deplaedt Enterprises Limited
Respondent
RECONSIDERATION DECISION
Adjudicator: Mark Hart
Indexed as: LeClair v. Deplaedt Enterprises Limited
1This Decision addresses a Request for Reconsideration filed by the applicant in relation to the Tribunal’s Decision 2014 HRTO 29 dated January 8, 2014, which dismissed this Application.
2On January 13, 2014, the applicant filed a Request for Reconsideration of the Tribunal’s Decision.
3Section 45.7 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c.H.19, as amended, (the “Code”) provides as follows:
45.7 (1) Any party to a proceeding before the Tribunal may request that the Tribunal reconsider its decision in accordance with the Tribunal rules.
(2) Upon request under subsection (1) or on its own motion, the Tribunal may reconsider its decision in accordance with its rules.
4Under section 45.7 of the Code, the Tribunal may, at the request of a party or on its own initiative, reconsider a final decision in accordance with the Tribunal’s Rules. The Tribunal has issued rules governing such requests as well as a Practice Direction to provide guidance to the community on the Tribunal’s exercise of its reconsideration powers.
5The Tribunal’s Practice Direction on Reconsideration begins with the following statements:
Decisions of the Tribunal are generally considered final and are not subject to appeal. However, parties may request that the Tribunal reconsider a final decision it has made. Reconsideration is a discretionary remedy; there is no right to have a decision reconsidered by the Tribunal. Generally, the Tribunal will only reconsider a decision where it finds that there are compelling and extraordinary circumstances for doing so and where these circumstances outweigh the public interest in finality of orders and decisions.
Reconsideration is not an appeal or an opportunity for a party to repair deficiencies in the presentation of its case.
6As is evident from the above, reconsideration is a discretionary remedy. That is, while the Tribunal has the jurisdiction to re-open and reconsider its own decisions, it is not obliged to do so. It may decide when reconsideration is advisable, both through the promulgation of rules setting out conditions for the exercise of its discretion, and through the application of its discretion on a case-by-case basis.
7In Sigrist and Carson v. London District Catholic School Board, 2008 HRTO 34, the Tribunal stated that reconsideration is not an opportunity to re-argue a case. Once the parties to an Application have had the opportunity to present their evidence and arguments to the Tribunal, and the Tribunal has made a decision disposing of the issues, parties are entitled to treat the matter as closed, subject to limited exceptions.
8The Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure provide that any party may request reconsideration of a final decision in accordance with the Rules. Rule 26.5 of the Rules provides:
A Request for Reconsideration will not be granted unless the Tribunal is satisfied that:
a. there are new facts or evidence that could potentially be determinative of the case and that could not reasonably have been obtained earlier; or
b. the party seeking reconsideration was entitled to but, through no fault of its own, did not receive notice of the proceeding or a hearing; or
c. the decision or order which is the subject of the reconsideration request is in conflict with established jurisprudence or Tribunal procedure and the proposed reconsideration involves a matter of general or public importance; or
d. other factors exist that, in the opinion of the Tribunal, outweigh the public interest in the finality of Tribunal decisions.
9As a result, I need to determine whether the material filed by the applicant in support of his request for reconsideration satisfies any of the criteria set out in Rule 26.5. The applicant relies upon the criteria identified in Rule 26.5 (a) and (c).
10The applicant first takes the position that I was unable to make a decision regarding his Application, as the applicant had filed a complaint about me on October 24, 2013. No authority is cited by the applicant to support this proposition. I am well aware of the legal principles relating to reasonable apprehension of bias, but the mere filing of a complaint against an adjudicator does not in and of itself create a reasonable apprehension of bias. Otherwise, any party to a proceeding could derail a potentially adverse decision simply by making a complaint about the adjudicator. There must be some reasonable and objective basis upon which to conclude that the filing of the complaint created a reasonable apprehension of bias. No such reasonable or objective basis for such a conclusion exists here.
11I was not made aware of the contents of the applicant’s complaint until after my initial Decision was rendered. In his complaint, the applicant alleges that I did not like or answer his questions or answer anything about the Form 22 that he had filed. First, that was not the purpose of the teleconference hearing. The purpose of the teleconference hearing was to hear from the applicant as to the basis upon which he alleged that the Minutes of Settlement had been breached by the respondent and what evidence he had in support of his allegations. This was explained to the applicant in the Case Assessment Direction setting up the teleconference hearing, in a further Case Assessment Direction that I issued on October 4, 2013, and was repeated again at the outset of the teleconference hearing.
12Second, while the applicant did raise questions at the end of his submissions about the Form 22 and about how a person could obtain a score of 190 on the Human Rights