Ontario Labour Relations Board
[1984] OLRB Rep. February 224
2053-83-U Service Employees International Union, Local 183, Complainant, v. Daynes Health Care Limited, Earl Daynes, Respondents, v. Group of Employees, Interveners
BEFORE: M. G. Mitchnick, Vice-Chairman, and Board Members J. A. Ronson and F. S. Cooke.
APPEARANCES: Michael Mitchell, Steven Barrett, J. Burshaw II and Caroline Shaughnessey for the complainant; J. Paul Wearing and Earl Daynes for the respondent; M. Longworth for the intervener.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; February 17, 1984
The style of cause is amended to show the respondents as: "Daynes Health Care Limited" and "Earl Daynes".
At the hearing of this matter on January 31, 1984, the intervening employees, whose present employment is the subject matter of these proceedings, requested an adjournment on the basis that they had received only seven days' notice of the hearing, and the counsel whom they then retained had not had sufficient opportunity to prepare to meet the issues. The complainant took the position that it was opposed to any adjournment. After deliberating, however, the Board ruled that it was not satisfied with the amount of notice that it had given to the intervening employees in the circumstances of this case, and granted the adjournment.
The applicant then asked the Board to order the intervening employees to pay its costs for the day, citing Metropolitan Toronto Apartment Builders Association, [1970] OLRB Rep. Nov. 846; R. T Construction, [1971] OLRB Rep. June 342; and Repac Construction, [1976] OLRB Rep. Oct 610,in support of the Board's authority to do so. None of those cases, however, establish that the Board has any independent authority to order costs be paid, outside of the Board's general remedial authority under section 89 of the Labour Relations Act, or of making an undertaking to pay costs a condition precedent to the granting of a request for an adjournment. Whether or not such authority does exist, the Board, for the same reasons which prompted it to find that an adjournment was required, would not consider this an appropriate case to exact costs from the intervening employees as the price of an adjournment. While we are not enamoured with their counsel's failure to contact counsel for the complainant prior to the hearing, it appears to us highly unlikely that the complainant, who challenged these employees' very status at the hearing, would have consented to their counsel's request.
We note also that the manner of proceeding has cost these employees as well a trip from Peterborough and a day before the Board. The request for costs to the complainant is denied.