Ian Jonathan Roland

The applicant, an OPP officer facing workplace misconduct proceedings, brought an application for judicial review seeking to quash or stay the proceedings.

He argued that the disciplinary process under the Police Services Act violated his rights under sections 7 and 11 of the Charter by failing to provide an independent and unbiased tribunal.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that section 11 applies only to criminal matters, not employment discipline, and that section 7 is not engaged because there is no constitutional right to practice a profession unfettered by regulatory rules.

The court also declined to order the police association to fund the applicant's legal counsel.

The defendant union brought a motion to bifurcate the trial of three related wrongful dismissal actions, seeking to separate the employment contract issues from the election and membership issues raised by some plaintiffs.

The defendant also sought to have the actions assigned to case management.

The court dismissed the motion for bifurcation, finding that the issues were complex and intertwined, and the defendant failed to demonstrate a clear benefit to severing them.

The court also declined to order case management, as there was no demonstrated need for court intervention at this time.

The actions were ordered to be tried together on consent.

The Toronto Chief of Police issued an order requiring suspended officers to report twice daily at police headquarters.

The Toronto Police Association filed a policy grievance challenging the reasonableness of the order.

The arbitrator concluded the order was not arbitrable as it fell within the Chief's exclusive statutory authority over operational matters.

The Divisional Court found the arbitrator's decision unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the Board's appeal, agreeing that the arbitrator's interpretation of the Police Services Act and the collective agreement was unreasonable, particularly her failure to apply established jurisprudence regarding the balance between management rights and working conditions.

The respondents, former employees and officers of a union local, brought an application before the Ontario Labour Relations Board alleging unfair labour practices.

They requested the vice-chair recuse himself because he had previously acted for one of the respondents in an employment dispute.

The vice-chair declined and dismissed the application for serving no labour relations purpose.

The Divisional Court quashed the decisions, finding a conflict of interest.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the Divisional Court erred by applying the test for a lawyer's conflict of interest rather than the test for reasonable apprehension of bias by an adjudicator.

The Court found the presumption of impartiality was not rebutted and reinstated the vice-chair's decisions.

The appellant brought a motion to vary the order of the motion judge to grant a stay of the Tribunal's decision pending appeal.

The Divisional Court found that the motion judge offered no reasons regarding irreparable harm and thus his decision was not entitled to deference.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the Court found a serious issue to be tried and that the balance of convenience favoured a stay, noting the member had practiced without restriction since 2005.

The motion was granted and a stay was ordered until the appeal hearing date.

The applicants sought judicial review of decisions by the Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissing their application.

They argued that the Vice-Chair should have recused himself because he had previously acted as a lawyer for one of the applicants in a related matter.

The Divisional Court found that the Vice-Chair misunderstood the test for conflict of interest and the appearance of bias, as set out in Macdonald Estate v. Martin.

The court quashed the Board's decisions and remitted the matter for a new hearing before a differently constituted panel.

The appellant appealed an order of the Superior Court of Justice declaring him a vexatious litigant.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that the appellant demonstrated a pattern of behaviour falling squarely within the criteria for a vexatious litigant set out in Lang Michener v. Fabian.

Costs of $10,000 were awarded to the respondent.

The self-represented applicant, a former dentist whose license was permanently revoked following disciplinary hearings, applied for judicial review of an earlier interim suspension and sought various other orders against the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the request to review the interim suspension was moot because the applicant's license had already been permanently revoked and all appeals exhausted.

The court also dismissed the applicant's requests for damages, return of patient files, and injunctions, characterizing the claims as vexatious and an abuse of process.

Full indemnity costs of $31,761 were awarded to the College.

The appellant was largely successful in having his most serious professional misconduct convictions set aside on appeal, but unsuccessful on his main ground of reasonable apprehension of bias, which consumed 90% of the appeal's time.

The appellant sought costs of $132,868.19.

Applying the principles from Boucher, the Divisional Court awarded the appellant reduced costs fixed at $15,000 on a partial indemnity scale to reflect the divided success.

The appellant dentist appealed a decision of the Discipline Committee finding him guilty of professional misconduct regarding his treatment of temporomandibular joint disorders.

He argued that a committee member's prior involvement with a Quality Assurance Committee created a reasonable apprehension of bias, and that the committee erred in refusing to qualify his proposed expert witness.

The Divisional Court dismissed the bias claim but found the committee erred in refusing to qualify the expert witness.

The findings of misconduct that depended on expert testimony were quashed, and the penalty and costs were set aside and remitted to a newly constituted panel.

The appellant sued the respondent, a lawyer retained by the College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario to prosecute a discipline case, alleging misfeasance in public office, abuse of process, and reckless misstatement.

The action was based on documents prepared for the discipline proceeding.

The motions judge dismissed the action, finding the documents inadmissible under s. 36(3) of the Regulated Health Professions Act.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, confirming that s. 36(3) contains no exception for bad faith or fraud, and that reading in such an exception would defeat the purpose of the provision.