Melissa Arruda

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination on the basis of disability and sex after being denied access to a sick leave plan following a car accident on maternity leave.

Her union had previously filed a grievance on the same issue, which was resolved through Minutes of Settlement.

The respondent requested that the application be dismissed under section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal denied the applicant's request to amend her application with administrative complaints and dismissed the application, finding that the grievance proceeding had appropriately dealt with the substance of the matter.

The respondent requested to defer the human rights application pending the conclusion of concurrent grievance proceedings under a collective agreement.

The applicant consented to the deferral.

The Tribunal granted the request, noting that grievance arbitrators have the authority to enforce human rights obligations and that deferral avoids concurrent proceedings on the same facts.

The applicant in a human rights proceeding filed several Requests for an Order During Proceedings seeking medical information from an individual respondent who was unable to attend the hearing, as well as the production of emails and police statements related to the incident.

The Tribunal dismissed the requests for medical information and emails, finding them unnecessary or that the documents could not be located.

The Tribunal ordered the Toronto Police Services Board to disclose the individual respondent's police statement.

Finding the applicant's repeated requests regarding the police board to be somewhat vexatious, the Tribunal ordered that the applicant must seek permission before filing further requests involving the police board.

The applicant filed two human rights applications alleging discrimination based on race and other grounds by his employer, union, police, and various individuals, arising primarily from a 2013 workplace incident that led to criminal charges and a workplace violence investigation.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine if the allegations were untimely, dealt with in another proceeding, or had no reasonable prospect of success.

The Tribunal found that most of the allegations were untimely as they occurred more than a year before the applications were filed, did not form a series of incidents with the timely allegations, and lacked a good faith explanation for the delay.

The remaining timely allegations—a suspension without pay and the union's refusal to fund legal representation for a human rights complaint—were dismissed for having no reasonable prospect of success, as the applicant provided only speculation and no evidence linking the respondents' actions to a protected Code ground.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination with respect to employment because of disability.

The respondent and intervenor union sought to dismiss the application under section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, arguing the matter was resolved by Minutes of Settlement reached at arbitration.

The Tribunal refused to dismiss the application because the applicant had not signed the settlement and did not implicitly accept its terms.

The Tribunal granted the applicant's request to amend her application to include her subsequent termination, and deferred the entire application pending the outcome of an expedited arbitration regarding the termination.

The defendants brought a motion under Rules 21.01(1)(b) and 25.06 of the Rules of Civil Procedure seeking to strike portions of the statement of claim, including claims against an individual corporate officer and a claim for oppression under the Canada Business Corporations Act.

The action alleged that a former corporate partner withdrew from a partnership while its share capital account reflected a negative balance arising from partnership drawings, resulting in claims for breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and oppression.

The court applied the stringent “plain and obvious” test for striking pleadings and held that the claims for breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment disclosed reasonable causes of action and should proceed.

However, the oppression remedy claim lacked sufficient material facts and was struck with leave to amend.

Certain paragraphs referencing settlement discussions were also struck as subject to settlement privilege.

The moving party sought leave to appeal a decision dismissing its motion for summary judgment.

The motion judge had dismissed the summary judgment motion due to the voluminous record, contradictory evidence, and the need for viva voce evidence, though he made obiter comments regarding a duty of fairness.

The Divisional Court refused leave to appeal, finding that the motion judge's obiter comments did not constitute a conflicting decision under Rule 62.02(4)(a) and that there was no reason to doubt the correctness of the decision that the case was unsuitable for summary judgment under Rule 62.02(4)(b).

The defendant, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's claims for breach of duty of fairness, defamation, negligence, and fraudulent concealment arising from a tendering process.

The court dismissed the motion for summary judgment regarding the duty of fairness and limitation period issues, finding that the voluminous and conflicting evidence required a full trial with viva voce evidence.

However, the court granted summary judgment dismissing the defamation claim, as the plaintiff failed to provide direct evidence of the alleged defamatory statements.