Karen Ensslen

The applicant filed an application under s. 34 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal scheduled a hearing by teleconference and delivered a Notice of Confirmation of Hearing to the applicant.

The applicant failed to attend the hearing and did not communicate with the Tribunal.

Upon the respondent's request, the Tribunal dismissed the application as abandoned.

The applicant union sought judicial review of a labour arbitration award that denied a grievor's claim for a pension after 31 years of continuous employment.

The majority of the arbitration board had found that the grievor waived his right to pension benefits and that the doctrine of laches barred the grievance.

The Divisional Court held that the arbitration board's decision was unreasonable.

The collective agreement and pension plan documents mandated enrollment for full-time employees and did not permit waiver.

Consequently, the employer bore the obligation to ensure enrollment, and the equitable defence of laches could not apply where waiver was legally impermissible.

The application was granted, the award quashed, and the matter remitted to the arbitration panel.

The applicant, a police officer with a disability, alleged that her police association and its executive members discriminated against her by withdrawing from her harassment grievance arbitration.

She also alleged a failure to accommodate her disability during settlement discussions and discriminatory mistreatment at membership meetings.

The Tribunal dismissed the application, finding no evidence that the decision to withdraw was tainted by discriminatory considerations, but rather was based on legitimate financial concerns and a breakdown in the relationship.

The Tribunal also found no failure to accommodate and concluded the allegations of mistreatment were unsubstantiated.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging that her union and members of its executive discriminated against her on the basis of disability when they withdrew from her grievance arbitration and made derogatory remarks.

The respondents requested that the application be dismissed under s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, deferred pending the grievance arbitration, or dismissed for disclosing no prima facie case.

They also sought to remove the personal respondents.

The Tribunal denied all requests, finding that the arbitration did not deal with the substance of the human rights complaint, there was no ongoing arbitration on the same facts, the personal respondents' conduct was a central issue, and the prima facie case issue had already been decided.

The applicant, a teacher placed on medical leave, sought to set aside a Registrar's order dismissing his application for judicial review of an arbitration award for delay.

The arbitrator had dismissed a grievance filed by the union on his behalf.

The court found that the applicant lacked standing to seek judicial review of the arbitration award, as the union had not taken a position adverse to him and there was no evidence of deficient representation.

Because the application had no real chance of success on the merits, the motion to set aside the Registrar's dismissal order was dismissed.

A school board sought court approval of a proposed methodology to distribute approximately $1.7 million received following the windup of a group insurance trust.

The plan allocated a portion to future benefit premium reserves and distributed the remainder to non‑union employees enrolled in the insurance policies as of June 30, 2006, using a banding system based on years of participation.

An objector representing former employees argued that excluding individuals who ceased enrollment before that date was unreasonable because they had contributed premiums to the trust.

The court held that the board had broad discretion under the court‑approved trust windup terms and that basing distribution on enrollment as of June 30, 2006 was rational because that same metric determined the board’s share of the surplus.

The court also found it reasonable to consider administrative costs and data limitations in designing the methodology.

The proposed distribution methodology was approved.

The employer applied for judicial review of an arbitrator's award that ordered it to repay funds to an employee.

The employee, a station collector, had erroneously credited customers' debit cards instead of debiting them, resulting in a shortage.

The arbitrator found the employee responsible for the shortage under the collective agreement but held the employer could not recover the funds because it failed to mitigate its loss.

The Divisional Court granted the application and quashed the award, finding the arbitrator's imposition of a duty to mitigate unreasonable in the context of a contractual debt and the collective agreement's clear language.