Mark Zega

The applicant, a school board trustee, sought judicial review of four decisions by the respondent school board finding she breached the Trustee Code of Conduct and imposing sanctions.

The Divisional Court quashed the decisions, finding that the Board breached its duty of procedural fairness by failing to provide the full investigation reports to the applicant and the decision-makers.

The Court also found the decisions unreasonable as they lacked intelligibility, the sanctions were excessive and punitive, and the Board failed to consider the applicant's s. 2(b) Charter rights.

The applicant, a school board trustee, brought motions to stay sanctions imposed against her by the respondent school board for violating its Trustee Code of Conduct, pending the hearing of her judicial review applications.

The sanctions included barring her from attending board and committee meetings and a public censure.

The court applied the RJR-MacDonald test and granted the stay, finding that there were serious issues to be tried regarding the board's process and jurisdiction, that the applicant would suffer irreparable harm if barred from meetings she could never attend again, and that the balance of convenience favoured the applicant as her application would be largely moot if she served the sanctions before the hearing.

The appellant School Board appealed a Divisional Court decision upholding the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario's finding that it failed to accommodate the respondent employee's disability and ordering her reinstatement.

The employee had developed a psychiatric impairment due to the stress of her position and was unable to return to her previous role.

The Tribunal found that the School Board failed to accommodate her by not placing her in available alternative positions.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Tribunal's decisions on both liability and the remedy of reinstatement were reasonable and entitled to deference.

The moving parties (respondents in a judicial review application) brought a motion to strike twelve affidavits filed by the responding parties.

The underlying application challenged a university tribunal's decision to suspend several tenured professors for workplace harassment.

The court struck the affidavit of an expert witness because it improperly opined on Ontario law.

However, the court declined to strike the remaining affidavits, finding that the evidence regarding the pre-hearing investigation, hearing process, and post-hearing impacts was relevant to the responding parties' procedural fairness arguments and should be assessed by the panel hearing the judicial review.

The respondent, Sharon Fair, brought a motion in writing to amend the Divisional Court's earlier written reasons, alleging clerical errors.

The applicant school board opposed the motion.

The court noted that the applicant had already obtained leave to appeal the judgment to the Court of Appeal.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that even if it had jurisdiction to amend its reasons, it would be unseemly to do so while an appeal was pending, and that justice would be better served by leaving the determination of any errors to the Court of Appeal.

The applicant school board sought judicial review of two Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decisions finding it discriminated against an employee by failing to accommodate her disability and ordering her reinstatement with damages.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the Tribunal's decisions on liability and remedy were reasonable and amply supported by the evidence.

The Court also rejected the applicant's arguments regarding procedural fairness and reasonable apprehension of bias.