HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Victor Wong
Applicant
-and-
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Insurance
Respondent
DECISION
Adjudicator: David Muir
Indexed as: Wong v. Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Insurance
APPEARANCES
Victor Wong, Applicant
Self-represented
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Insurance, Respondent
Karen Jensen and Joanne Witt, Counsel
1This is an Application filed pursuant to section 34 of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”) alleging discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the basis of age, race, ethnic origin and colour.
2In his Application the applicant complains that the respondent determined that he was 100% at fault for a collision in which he was involved when he could not have been and the OPP officer who attended at the scene confirmed that he had not caused the accident. For purposes of this Decision these facts are assumed to be correct.
3In a Case Assessment Direction issued on January 23, 2014 the Tribunal directed on its own initiative, that a telephone hearing be held on whether the Application should be dismissed, in whole or in part, on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect that it will succeed. A summary hearing was held on May 1, 2014 by telephone conference call. All parties participated.
4The Application is dismissed for the following reasons.
5Rules 19A.1 and 19A.2 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure read as follows:
19A.1 The Tribunal may hold a summary hearing, on its own initiative or at the request of a party, on the question of whether an Application should be dismissed in whole or in part on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect that the Application or part of the Application will succeed.
19A.2 Rules 16 and 17 do not apply to summary hearings. The Tribunal may give directions about steps the parties must take prior to the summary hearing, including disclosure or witness statements.
6Details about the nature of a summary hearing were set out as follows in Dabic v. Windsor Police Service, 2010 HRTO 1994, at paras. 8 and 9:
In some cases, the issue at the summary hearing may be whether, assuming all the allegations in the application to be true, it has a reasonable prospect of success. In these cases, the focus will generally be on the legal analysis and whether what the applicant alleges may be reasonably considered to amount to a Code violation.
In other cases, the focus of the summary hearing may be on whether there is a reasonable prospect that the applicant can prove, on a balance of probabilities, that his or her Code rights were violated. Often, such cases will deal with whether the applicant can show a link between an event and the grounds upon which he or she makes the claim. The issue will be whether there is a reasonable prospect that evidence the applicant has or that is reasonably available to him or her can show a link between the event and the alleged prohibited ground.
7In his Application the applicant states that he was determined to be at fault for an automobile accident under the Fault Determination Rules (“Rules”), R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 668, a Regulation under the Insurance Act, R.S.O. 1990. c. I.8, as amended.
8The applicant’s essential complaint is with the Rules which allocate fault for purposes of automobile insurance and does not understand how, when the OPP officer that attended at the accident site told him that he was not at fault, he can be 100% at fault for purposes of his insurance policy. In essence the applicant’s claim, which he repeated many times at the summary hearing, is that it must be discrimination under the Code to be found 100% at fault under the Rules when he did not cause the accident and was in fact the victim. It is difficult not to appreciate the applicant’s frustration with how the Rules applied in his circumstances. However, the applicant can point to no evidence either in his possession or that maybe reasonably available to him, that these Rules were not applied to him fairly and without discrimination.
9The applicant also alleged at the hearing, although this is not particularized in the Application, that the respondent “cooked” the situation because he is Asian and not Caucasian. When I asked him what evidence he had of this he returned to his arguments about how he did not cause the accident and therefore could not be at fault. He also claims that the respondent gave him incomplete or inadequate information at the time of his claim. Beyond this bald assertion, the applicant pointed to no evidence to support these claims. Moreover none of this bears on his ultimate claim, and the essence of the Application, that the discriminatory act of the respondent was in their determination that he was at fault when he had not caused the accident. At one point in the summary hearing the applicant and counsel for the respondent went through several different scenarios under the Rules as the applicant sought to “test” the respondent’s position. I allowed this discussion to go on with the hope that it might help the applicant understand how the Rules works in this regard. It may or may not have been of assistance. However, it was ultimately irrelevant to the inquiry here and I intervened and gave the applicant a final opportunity to sum up his position. The applicant did sum up his position by repeating a number of points made already.
10The applicant also made a number of unsupportable and inappropriate allegations about the conduct of the respondent in participating in this summary hearing. This summary hearing was scheduled on the Tribunal’s initiative and not at the request of the respondent. The respondent did provide written submissions in advance of the hearing, including the various provisions which govern the dispute he has with his insurer. These submissions were helpful and had the applicant read them carefully in advance of the summary hearing he might have gained a more complete understanding of how the automobile insurance system works.
11For all of these reasons the Application is dismissed.
Dated at Toronto, this 5th day of May, 2014.
“Signed by”
David Muir
Vice-chair