Silverberg v. Lau, 2017 HRTO 1676

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Sara Silverberg

Applicant

-and-

Nixon Lau and Valeri Motchenov

Respondents

RECONSIDERATION DECISION

Adjudicator: Naomi Overend

Date: December 19, 2017

Citation: 2017 HRTO 1676

Indexed as: Silverberg v. Lau

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS

Sara Silverberg, Applicant

Self-represented

1The applicant requests Reconsideration of the Tribunal’s October 21, 2016 Decision, 2016 HRTO 1368, dismissing this Application.

2The applicant filed an initial Request for Reconsideration (“Request”) on December 12, 2016. Subsequent email correspondence from the applicant indicated that she did not consider her Request complete. Over the course of the next eight months, the applicant filed a further Request for Reconsideration as well as further documents and accompanying submissions. The final package was submitted on August 29, 2017, more than 10 months after the release of the Decision.

3Rule 26.1 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure state: “Any party may request reconsideration of a final decision of the Tribunal within 30 days from the date of the decision.” The applicant did not file within 30 days, as required by Rule 26.1, nor did she provide a good faith explanation for the delay as is required by Rule 26.5.1.

4The circumstances in which Reconsideration may be granted are set out in Rule 26.5:

26.5 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.

5The applicant states that she is relying on all four factors in support of her request to have the October 21, 2016 Decision reconsidered.

6The 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. [Emphasis added.]

7The applicant’s submissions in her Requests largely focus on what she believes are errors in the Tribunal’s interpretation of the evidence. This does not constitute compelling or extraordinary circumstances.

8In addition, the applicant has submitted a number of documents which she indicates ought to have been exhibits in the hearing. I would note that I gave the applicant a great deal of latitude in submitting documents, even where the relevance or admissibility of them was not always clear. As noted in the Decision, there was one document (an OHIP record) I refused to admit because the applicant was not prepared to let the respondent see it. Moreover, the applicant appended documents to her final written submissions, which she asked me to consider even though they were not part of the evidentiary record, which was clearly improper. The applicant does not submit that these documents were “new facts or evidence that were not reasonably available to her” at the time that evidence was being led by the parties.

9The applicant has provided no basis for granting her Request. Accordingly, the Request for Reconsideration is dismissed.