Allison Taylor

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dismissing her discrimination application as an abuse of process for failing to produce medical records.

In a prior case management direction, a Vice-Chair had ruled that the requirement to produce medical records was moot because the applicant was only pursuing general damages.

The adjudicator subsequently dismissed the application for non-production without addressing the mootness ruling or providing the applicant an opportunity to make submissions on altering it.

The Divisional Court granted the application, finding that the adjudicator breached procedural fairness by implicitly overturning the prior ruling without notice or process.

The HRTO decisions were quashed and the matter remitted to a different adjudicator.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine whether the applicant's human rights application should be dismissed on a preliminary basis for having no reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant alleged discrimination in employment based on race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, ethnic origin, disability, and reprisal.

The Tribunal declined to dismiss the application, finding that the parties presented conflicting versions of key facts.

Because credibility issues cannot be resolved at a summary hearing, the Tribunal ordered a two-day hearing on the merits.

The applicant sought a declaration that its perfected security interest in amounts payable by the City of Toronto to Selectore Ltd. had priority over a garnishment notice served by the respondent Globealive Wireless Management Corp. Globealive argued that the applicant's loan was not in default when the receivable became due, thus precluding the applicant's right to the funds.

The court, relying on section 20(1)(a)(ii) of the Personal Property Security Act, held that a perfected security interest takes priority over a later notice of garnishment, irrespective of whether the secured loan was in default at the time the receivable became due.

The applicant's motion was granted, affirming its priority, and Globealive was ordered to pay costs to both the applicant and the City of Toronto.

The plaintiff moved to remove the defendant's lawyer of record on the basis that the lawyer would be a witness to material facts at trial and that her communications formed the factual foundation for the plaintiff's wrongful dismissal and human rights claims.

The court found that while it was not certain the lawyer would be called as a witness, she was so closely connected to the material facts underlying the action that she was compromised as an advocate.

The lawyer's own words were at the heart of the dispute, putting her credibility in issue and creating a conflict between her role as counsel and participant.

The motion to remove counsel was granted.

The moving parties sought leave to appeal an interlocutory order that struck certain paragraphs of the statement of claim with leave to amend.

The moving parties argued the motions judge erred in considering the amended statement of claim, granting leave to amend, and failing to deal with the breach of fiduciary duty allegation.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding no conflicting decisions, no good reason to doubt the correctness of the order, and no issue of general or public importance.

The defendants brought a motion to strike various paragraphs of the plaintiffs' Statement of Claim in an action for oppression and breach of fiduciary duty.

The defendants argued the paragraphs were irrelevant, pleaded evidence, constituted conclusions, and were prolix.

The court agreed that many paragraphs, including the 'Overview' and 'Detailed Background' sections, contained evidence, argument, and irrelevant information that could prejudice a fair trial.

The court struck the offending paragraphs and headings with leave to amend, while allowing the plaintiffs to maintain allegations related to the breach of fiduciary duty claim.

The respondents in a human rights application alleging age and disability discrimination requested an order compelling the Ontario College of Teachers to produce communications between the College and the applicant.

The respondents argued the communications were relevant to the applicant's alleged performance deficiencies.

The Tribunal found the documents arguably relevant but, rather than ordering the College to produce them, directed the applicant to obtain the documents from the College and disclose them as part of her arguably relevant documents.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and reprisal by the respondents, who acted as opposing counsel for his former employer at a WSIAT hearing.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine if the application had a reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal found that it lacked jurisdiction because the relationship between a lawyer and an opposing party does not fall within any of the five social areas protected by the Human Rights Code.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment and harassment by the employer's lawyer, who sent a demand letter regarding alleged fraud.

The lawyer, named as an individual respondent, filed a Request for an Order During Proceedings to be removed from the application.

The Tribunal held that it lacks jurisdiction over the conduct of a lawyer representing another party in a legal proceeding and ordered the lawyer removed as a respondent.

The requesting respondents brought a Request for an Order During Proceedings to remove the individual respondents from the human rights application.

The Tribunal applied the Persaud factors and found no compelling reason to continue the application against most of the individual respondents, as the corporate respondent accepted deemed liability and the application did not allege they acted outside the scope of their employment.

However, the Tribunal declined to remove one individual respondent, Zeyna Erdogan, because the allegations against her arguably amounted to harassment under section 5(2) of the Code, for which the corporate respondent would not be vicariously liable under section 46.3(1).

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment based on disability and family status.

The applicant's union had previously filed a grievance regarding the same facts and issues.

The Tribunal issued a Notice of Intent to Defer the application pending the resolution of the grievance.

The respondents supported deferral, while the applicant made no submissions.

The Tribunal found a clear overlap between the grievance and the application and deferred the application until the grievance proceedings are resolved.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination based on sex and pregnancy following the termination of her employment.

The application was filed more than one year after the termination.

The respondent requested the application be dismissed for delay.

The applicant explained the delay was due to initially filing with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which later determined it lacked jurisdiction.

The Tribunal found it was not plain and obvious that the application lacked a good faith explanation for the delay and allowed the application to proceed.

The defendants moved for several orders in a wrongful dismissal action, including injunctive relief restricting the plaintiff’s direct contact with them and sanctions for the plaintiff’s failure to pay multiple outstanding costs awards.

The court held that a master lacked jurisdiction to grant interlocutory injunctive relief under the Courts of Justice Act and adjourned that portion of the motion to be heard by a judge.

The court found the plaintiff had failed to pay four costs orders totalling $6,160 and that no appeals remained pending.

Applying Rules 57.03(2) and 60.12 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court rejected the plaintiff’s claimed inability to pay and concluded that sanctions were warranted.

The action was stayed until the outstanding costs are paid, with leave to the defendants to seek dismissal if payment is not made within three months.

Following dismissal of the defendants' summary judgment motion, the court determined the plaintiff's entitlement to costs.

The court applied rule 57.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and assessed objections to the plaintiff's bill of costs, including pre-motion entries, client communications, clerical work, and factum preparation time.

The court rejected a substantial indemnity award but found the claimed partial indemnity fees and disbursements were within the range the unsuccessful moving parties should reasonably have expected.

Costs were awarded to the plaintiff on a partial indemnity scale in the amount of $36,330 plus disbursements of $2,567.21, inclusive of applicable taxes.

Following a finding that the respondent school board discriminated against the applicant on the basis of race and engaged in reprisal during a hiring process for a Superintendent position, the Tribunal determined the appropriate remedies.

The Tribunal awarded the applicant $10,000 as compensation for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect, noting the objective seriousness of the discriminatory factors considered by the Board.

Additionally, the Tribunal ordered the Board to retain an expert to develop and deliver ongoing anti-racism and bias-free interviewing training for its Director of Education, senior management, and trustees to promote future compliance with the Code.

The appellant appealed an order of a Superior Court judge that dismissed his appeal from three interlocutory orders of a Master.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal, holding that it lacked jurisdiction because the proper route of appeal from the Superior Court judge's order regarding interlocutory matters was to the Divisional Court with leave.

The applicant, a South Asian man, alleged racial and gender discrimination and reprisal after being denied a Superintendent position with the respondent school board.

The Tribunal found that while the predominant reason for not hiring the applicant—his lack of experience as an elementary school principal—was credible and non-discriminatory, the Director of Education's negative impression of his leadership style was influenced by racial stereotypes and his past complaints of discrimination.

The Tribunal concluded that racial discrimination and reprisal were factors in the decision, violating the Human Rights Code, though the applicant would not have been hired regardless.

The gender discrimination claim was dismissed.

In an interim decision during a human rights hearing, the Tribunal ruled on the admissibility of documentary and witness evidence proposed by the applicant.

The Tribunal admitted four reports regarding diversity and demographic statistics in the GTA and York Region as contextual evidence, relieving against the applicant's failure to disclose them in advance under Rule 3.6.

However, the Tribunal declined to hear from two proposed witnesses, finding their anticipated evidence to be either withdrawn, irrelevant to the specific hiring competitions at issue, or lacking a factual foundation.

The applicant filed an application alleging workplace harassment and reprisal by the respondents.

The respondents requested the application be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, arguing the allegations did not relate to any protected grounds under the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal found that the application contained only general allegations of harassment and reprisal without linking them to any Code grounds.

As the Tribunal only has jurisdiction over disputes involving Code violations, the application was dismissed.

The respondent requested an order for the production of documents relating to the applicant's prior employment and pension, and an order striking certain paragraphs from the applicant's Statement of Additional Facts.

The Tribunal dismissed the request for production, finding the documents either not arguably relevant to the discrimination allegations regarding the 2006 and 2007 competitions or premature given the proposed bifurcation of the hearing.

The Tribunal granted the request to strike portions of the Statement of Additional Facts that went beyond providing background information and attempted to litigate previously excluded allegations.

The Tribunal also issued case management directions, including proposing bifurcation of the hearing into liability and remedy phases.