Jason Tam

The appellant, owner of a dog sledding business, appealed a compliance order issued by Animal Welfare Services requiring him to provide shelters of suitable size for his dogs.

The Board found that while the shelters were large enough to allow the dogs to lie down with their legs fully extended, they were not tall enough to permit the dogs to stand with their heads held at normal height.

The compliance order was modified to require action only with respect to shelter heights, and the completion date was extended.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Landlord and Tenant Board decision without first exhausting statutory appeal rights under s. 210 of the Residential Tenancies Act.

The Board moved to quash the application on this basis.

The court dismissed the motion to quash, noting that the Court of Appeal's recent decision in Yatar shifted the jurisprudential ground regarding the necessity of exhausting appeal rights before seeking judicial review.

The court deferred the issue to be decided by the panel hearing the application.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision finding she breached a settlement agreement and ordering her to repay $15,216.00 to the respondent.

The applicant alleged procedural unfairness and bias by the HRTO.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the HRTO's procedural rulings were fair, there was no reasonable apprehension of bias, and the conclusion that the applicant breached the settlement by advancing resolved claims in a civil action was manifestly reasonable.

The applicants sought judicial review of two decisions by the Animal Care Review Board regarding their sled dog business.

The Board had confirmed orders requiring the applicants to improve living conditions for their dogs, including lengthening tethers and remediating doghouses.

When the applicants failed to comply, animal welfare inspectors removed approximately 230 dogs.

The Board subsequently ordered that most of the dogs not be returned until the applicants complied with the orders.

The Divisional Court dismissed the applications for judicial review, finding the Board's interpretation of the tethering requirements reasonable and concluding that the removal and retention of the dogs were justified due to the applicants' ongoing non-compliance with the minimum standards of care.

The Durham Regional Police Services Board and Christopher Delaney appealed a Divisional Court decision that found the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario's (HRTO) decisions unreasonable.

The HRTO had ruled that a settlement agreement for a second human rights application also settled a prior, undecided first application by Joseph Briggs, and subsequently cancelled a favourable decision for Briggs on the first application as an abuse of process.

The Divisional Court reversed the HRTO, finding its interpretation of the settlement unreasonable and deciding the matter itself rather than remitting it.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Divisional Court's finding that the HRTO's decision was unreasonable due to its narrow interpretation of the factual matrix and exclusion of relevant evidence (Form 25).

The Court of Appeal also affirmed the Divisional Court's discretion to decide the matter rather than remitting it, citing the inordinate delay and the binary nature of the issue.

The appeal was dismissed, confirming that the settlement did not cover the first application.

The applicant sought judicial review of an interim decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a stand-alone Charter challenge regarding a Ministry of Transportation policy.

Before the judicial review was heard, the applicant succeeded on his Human Rights Code claim, obtained his driver's licence, and the Ministry revised the impugned policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review on the basis of mootness, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case as there was no longer an adversarial context and the issue was not evasive of review.

The tenant appealed three decisions of the Landlord and Tenant Board relating to claims for damages and rent abatement due to excessive noise from adjacent units.

The Board had awarded a rent abatement and general damages, but dismissed a subsequent duplicative application based on res judicata.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding no errors of law in the Board's assessment of damages or its control of its own process.

The moving parties, operators of a dog sledding business, sought a stay of an Animal Care Review Board decision requiring them to pay over $500,000 for the costs of care of over 100 sled dogs removed by animal welfare authorities.

The stay was sought pending the determination of two related applications for judicial review challenging the underlying compliance and removal orders.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the court found a serious issue to be tried, irreparable harm due to the potential forfeiture and euthanization of the specially trained dogs, and that the balance of convenience favoured a stay to prevent the judicial reviews from becoming moot.

The court granted the stay on terms, including a requirement for future submissions on financial security for ongoing care costs.

The Ministry of Health appealed a Divisional Court decision dismissing its application for judicial review of Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decisions.

The Tribunal had found that the Ministry engaged in systemic gender discrimination against Ontario midwives by abandoning equitable compensation principles established in 1993, leading to a significant compensation gap between midwives and community health clinic physicians.

The Court of Appeal affirmed that the standard of review for the Tribunal's decisions is reasonableness, even post-Vavilov.

The Court held that the Adjudicator's liability and remedy decisions were reasonable, as they revealed a rational chain of analysis supported by the evidence, and dismissed the appeal.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision.

A motions judge struck her affidavit containing evidence not before the HRTO and subsequently dismissed her motion to adduce further evidence as an abuse of process under Rule 2.1.

The applicant brought a motion to a panel of the Divisional Court under s. 21(5) of the Courts of Justice Act to set aside those decisions.

The panel dismissed the motion, finding it was brought out of time and that the motions judge made no error of law or palpable and overriding error of fact in applying the general rule against admitting new evidence on judicial review.

The appellant appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board order evicting him as an unauthorized occupant.

He argued he was denied procedural fairness when the Board refused an adjournment, denied his request for human rights accommodation, and removed him from the virtual hearing.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the appellant was the author of his own misfortune due to his disruptive behaviour and refusal to follow the adjudicator's directions.

The Court also found no errors of law in the Board's determination that the appellant was an unauthorized occupant rather than a tenant.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision that partially dismissed his claims of discrimination in the hiring process for a law firm associate position.

The HRTO had found age discrimination, racial discrimination, and reprisal by the respondents, but dismissed other allegations.

On judicial review, the applicant argued the HRTO Vice-Chair breached procedural fairness, misapprehended evidence, and committed errors of law.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the HRTO's process was fair, free of bias, and its conclusions were reasonable and supported by the evidence.

At a case conference, the Landlord and Tenant Board sought to proceed with a motion to quash the applicant's application for judicial review.

The applicant argued the tribunal record should be produced first.

The court ordered that the motion to quash should proceed and set a timetable for the motion materials.

The self-represented applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dismissing his human rights complaint against his former employer, coworkers, and a workplace investigator.

The HRTO had dismissed the complaint against the employer and certain coworkers under s. 34(11) of the Human Rights Code because the applicant had commenced a concurrent civil action based on the same facts.

The HRTO also dismissed the complaint against the workplace investigator, finding no reasonable prospect of success.

The Divisional Court held that the applicable standard of review was reasonableness, following Vavilov, and found that the HRTO's decisions were reasonable and procedurally fair.

The application for judicial review was dismissed with costs.

The self-represented appellant sought judicial review of two Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decisions that dismissed her application for failure to appear and denied her request for reconsideration.

The appellant had missed the start of a telephone hearing due to a scheduling mistake and childcare duties, but attempted to join and emailed the tribunal within the scheduled hearing time.

The Divisional Court found that the appellant provided a sufficient explanation for her delay and that the HRTO's refusal to reconsider the dismissal was unreasonable.

The HRTO decisions were quashed and the matter was remitted for a new hearing date.

The landlord appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board decision which found the Board had exclusive jurisdiction over the tenants' application for rent abatement.

The landlord had previously commenced a Superior Court application for unpaid occupancy fees, and the tenants subsequently applied to the Board for rent abatement due to alleged lack of heat.

The Divisional Court held that the Board erred in law by concluding it could not decline jurisdiction and by failing to consider whether the tenants' application was an abuse of process.

The Court found that allowing the Board application to proceed would lead to duplicative proceedings and inconsistent findings, as the tenants were raising the exact same issues as a set-off defense in the Superior Court action.

The appeal was allowed and the tenants' Board application was dismissed as an abuse of process.

Roch Longueépée, largely successful in his appeal, sought partial indemnity costs from the University of Waterloo and the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO).

The Court of Appeal for Ontario found Longueépée entitled to costs against the University, fixing them at $25,000.

The court also awarded costs against the HRTO, fixed at $7,500, because its arguments on the standard of review and request for a five-judge panel expanded the scope of the appeal, even though its position was not taken in bad faith.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision dismissing his discrimination complaint against PayPal.

The applicant alleged discrimination based on ethnic origin, place of residence, and citizenship after PayPal refused to issue him a cheque in US dollars upon closing his Canadian account.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the Tribunal reasonably concluded that the essence of the complaint was based on residence, which is not an enumerated ground under the Human Rights Code.

The court also found no breach of procedural fairness.

The applicant sought judicial review of two HRTO decisions regarding the interpretation of a release signed to settle a human rights complaint against the police.

The HRTO had ruled that the release also covered an earlier, separate human rights complaint that was under reserve, and subsequently set aside its merits decision in that earlier complaint.

The Divisional Court found the HRTO's interpretation of the release unreasonable, as it failed to properly consider the factual matrix and ambiguity in the settlement documents.

The court set aside both HRTO decisions, concluding the release did not apply to the earlier complaint.

The respondent applied to the University of Waterloo as a transfer student but did not meet the academic standards due to prior grades affected by undiagnosed disabilities.

The University's Admissions Committee rejected his application based solely on those unaccommodated grades.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario dismissed his discrimination complaint, finding the University met its duty to accommodate.

The Divisional Court set aside the HRTO decision as unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Divisional Court's finding that the HRTO decision was unreasonable, as the University could not rely solely on unaccommodated grades to demonstrate reasonable accommodation, but varied the remedy to remit the matter back to the HRTO rather than the Admissions Committee.