Human Rights - ODC

The appellant brought two appeals from the Landlord and Tenant Board and one application for judicial review regarding a Human Rights Tribunal decision.

The court issued a notice under Rule 2.1.01(3) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, considering whether to dismiss the proceedings as frivolous, vexatious, and an abuse of process.

The court found that the Divisional Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeals, which raised no questions of law, and lacked jurisdiction to award damages on a judicial review application.

All three proceedings were dismissed.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Consent and Capacity Board confirming his involuntary committal under the Mental Health Act.

He argued that the Board erred in finding he met the criteria for committal, that his initial Form 1 assessment upon completion of a criminal sentence ('psychiatric gating') was defective, and that his ongoing detention violated his Charter rights.

The court dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was reasonable and supported by evidence of the appellant's mental disorders and risk of harm.

The court also held that the initial Form 1 was validly executed and that the civil committal regime under the Mental Health Act does not constitute arbitrary detention or double punishment, and thus does not violate the Charter.

The applicants sought judicial review of interim decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which declined to dismiss human rights applications under s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code.

The applicants argued that prior proceedings under the Police Services Act and the Regulated Health Professions Act should bar the human rights complaints based on issue estoppel and finality principles.

The Divisional Court dismissed the applications, finding the Tribunal reasonably applied the Supreme Court's fairness principles from Penner to conclude that it would be unfair to dismiss the human rights applications, given the different purposes, lack of financial stakes, and statutory contexts of the prior proceedings.

The moving party employer brought a motion to dismiss the responding party employee's application for judicial review for excessive delay.

The employee sought to review decisions of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario made five years prior.

The court found the employee's explanation for the delay—that he pursued other avenues like the United Nations and Supreme Court of Canada, and did not know about judicial review—unacceptable.

Given the five-year delay, the statutory mandate for expeditious resolution of human rights disputes, and the prejudice to the employer, the court granted the motion and dismissed the application for judicial review.

The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) decision dismissing her nine applications on the basis of delay and having no reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant argued the HRTO failed to include all respondents she complained against.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the applicant failed to address why the HRTO's decisions were unreasonable and noting the HRTO correctly identified the named respondents.

The applicants sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision finding they discriminated against three Muslim employees by requiring them to taste pork, failing to accommodate religious holidays, and engaging in reprisals.

The applicants argued the Tribunal made unreasonable findings of fact, erred in its treatment of s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, and improperly ignored unsworn willsay statements.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, holding that the Tribunal's fact-finding was reasonable, the s. 45.1 argument was not raised before the Tribunal, and willsay statements of uncalled witnesses are not evidence.

The appellants, federal inmates, sought to certify a class action against the Crown after correctional officers seized t-shirts they had designed to commemorate inmates who died in custody.

The motion judge refused certification, finding that the inmate grievance process under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act was the preferable procedure for resolving the dispute.

On appeal to the Divisional Court, the appellants argued the motion judge erred in her preferability analysis.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the motion judge correctly applied the framework from AIC Limited v. Fischer and made no error in principle in concluding that the grievance process could provide meaningful redress and access to justice.

The applicant, a First Nations constable, sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal decision dismissing his complaint that his suspension and termination by the OPP Commissioner were discriminatory and acts of reprisal.

The applicant had been terminated after making public comments criticizing the OPP.

The Divisional Court upheld the Tribunal's findings that the exclusion of First Nations constables from the procedural protections of the Police Services Act was not discriminatory, but rather respected First Nations self-government.

The Court also upheld the finding that the termination was not a reprisal under the Human Rights Code, as the applicant's public comments were not an assertion of human rights.

A related application by the First Nation Council alleging a denial of natural justice was also dismissed.

The respondents sought costs following the dismissal of the applicant's judicial review application.

The respondents sought substantial indemnity costs, arguing the litigation was duplicative, vexatious, and involved unfounded allegations of bias.

The applicant argued for modest costs to accommodate access to justice.

The Divisional Court agreed with the respondents, finding the judicial review replicated previous litigation and was entirely unfounded.

The court awarded substantial indemnity costs of $15,000 to the Swan respondents and $8,088.46 to the University of Western Ontario.

The applicant challenged the constitutionality of a regulation under the Highway Traffic Act that requires drivers 80 years of age and older to undergo biennial testing to renew their driver's licences.

The applicant argued this requirement discriminated on the basis of age contrary to s. 15 of the Charter.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the testing program is individualized, sensitive to the potential problems of aging, and not based on arbitrary or demeaning stereotypes.

The court concluded the regulation does not violate s. 15 of the Charter.

The self-represented applicant brought three procedural motions within his application for judicial review of decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

First, he sought to strike the respondents' materials for late filing; the court dismissed this, allowing the materials nunc pro tunc as the delay was minimal and caused no prejudice.

Second, he argued the Tribunal's record of proceedings was incomplete; the court agreed and ordered the Tribunal to allow the applicant to select correspondence for a supplementary record, awarding him $150 in costs.

Third, he sought to remove respondent counsel for an alleged conflict of interest; the court dismissed this as the Tribunal had already decided the issue.

The employer sought judicial review of a labour arbitrator's decision finding that it failed to properly accommodate a paramedic who suffered a workplace injury.

The arbitrator held that under the collective agreement and the Human Rights Code, the employer was required to accommodate the paramedic by allowing him to 'ride third' in an ambulance once his medical restrictions permitted it, and that the employer failed to establish undue hardship.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the arbitrator's interpretation of the collective agreement and application of human rights principles to be reasonable.

The respondent union brought a motion to dismiss four applications for judicial review commenced by the self-represented applicant.

The applicant had failed to set any of the applications down for a hearing, resulting in delays ranging from over two to nearly five years.

The court found the delay to be unacceptable and that it caused obvious prejudice in the employment context.

The court also noted the applicant's history of abusing tribunal processes and acting as a vexatious litigant.

The motion was granted, the applications for judicial review were dismissed, and the applicant's cross-motion was dismissed.

The applicant, a nurse, sought judicial review of two decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario regarding her complaints against her employer hospital.

The Adjudicator had found the hospital failed to accommodate her disability after October 2009 but dismissed claims of discrimination prior to that date, and awarded monetary compensation rather than reinstatement.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the Adjudicator's decisions on the merits and remedy were reasonable and supported by the evidence, and that there was no denial of procedural fairness in limiting witness testimony to individual rather than systemic claims.

The applicant hospital sought judicial review of an arbitration award which found it had violated the Collective Agreement by changing a registered nurse's status from full-time to part-time.

To accommodate her disability, the nurse worked half her hours in her previous bargaining unit position and half in a non-bargaining unit administrative position.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, holding that the Arbitrator did not exceed his jurisdiction and that his interpretation of the Collective Agreement, in light of the employer's duty to accommodate, was reasonable.

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

The Tribunal had directed a summary hearing and deferred the applicant's request for document production until after the hearing.

The applicant refused to provide dates for the summary hearing until his document request was answered, leading the Tribunal to dismiss the complaint.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review, finding that the Tribunal acted reasonably and within its rights to control its own process when faced with the applicant's refusal to cooperate.

The City of Toronto sought judicial review of two interim decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which had rejected the City's request for early dismissal of a human rights application challenging municipal zoning by-laws regarding group homes.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review, finding that the Tribunal's decision to defer the jurisdictional challenge until a full evidentiary record was established was reasonable.

The Court also held that the application for judicial review was premature, as there were no exceptional circumstances warranting intervention in the Tribunal's interim procedural decisions.

The moving parties sought leave to appeal an Ontario Municipal Board decision that upheld interim control by-laws and zoning amendments restricting short-term accommodations in the Town of Blue Mountains.

The moving parties argued the Board erred in its interpretation of the Planning Act, the Human Rights Code, and the doctrine of 'people zoning', and that it denied procedural fairness.

The Divisional Court found no reason to doubt the correctness of the Board's decision on any question of law, concluding the by-laws regulated land use rather than personal characteristics and were a justified planning response.

Leave to appeal was denied.

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

The Tribunal had found that an employee was subjected to a poisoned work environment based on sex and was terminated contrary to the Human Rights Code.

However, the Tribunal only ordered the inoperative corporate employer to pay damages, declining to hold the individual managers and owners jointly and severally liable.

The Divisional Court held that the Tribunal's failure to provide a rational basis for not imposing personal liability on the managers, who had failed to address the poisoned environment and had terminated the employee, was unreasonable.

The matter was remitted to the Tribunal to reconsider the apportionment of joint and several liability.

The applicants sought judicial review of two decisions of the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal.

The Tribunal had dismissed applications by the unions to eliminate different rates of progression through the wage grids of comparable male and female job classes, holding that the Pay Equity Act does not require the harmonization of wage grids.

The Tribunal also rejected the argument that its interpretation of the Act authorized a contravention of the Human Rights Code.

The Divisional Court dismissed the applications for judicial review, finding that the Tribunal's decisions were reasonable and that the Pay Equity Act does not require or authorize a contravention of the Human Rights Code.