Ontario Labour Relations Board
3190-99-ES Rudolph’s Specialty Bakeries Ltd., Applicant v. Thomas Johnston and Ministry of Labour, Responding Parties.
Employment Practices Branch File No. 32004699
BEFORE: Inge M. Stamp, Vice-Chair.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; June 14, 2000
This is a request for reconsideration of the Board’s decision in this matter dated May 24, 2000. The applicant employer asks the Board to reconsider its decision denying an adjournment of the hearing scheduled for July 6, 2000. The responding party, Thomas Johnston objects to the request for adjournment.
The applicant’s reasons for the reconsideration request are set out in the letter dated May 29, 2000:
“We request that the Board reconsider its decision of May 24, 2000 and grant an adjournment for the following reasons.
We did not seek a frivolous adjournment.
Although we now see, that our request for an adjournment did not indicate the compelling reason on our part. We believed a simple request would suffice, but we now see that this is not good enough.
The facts are that we shall be out of the country on that date for business reasons that had been set long prior to your Notice of 3/28/00. We tried to indicate same in our original letter of April 22, 2000 and proposed alternate dates.
Our inability to be present on July 6, 2000 is a matter beyond our control and predates your Notice of 03/28/00.
We ask you to reconsider the above-noted Decision of May 24 and grant an adjournment; so that we can have the matter properly heard and save everyone the trouble of appeals and other reviews”.
The Board has a long standing practice to grant adjournments only on agreement or in circumstances that are generally beyond control of the party seeking the adjournment. The initial hearing dates are set by the Registrar. Travel plans, business or personal, made by a party to the proceeding are not “extraordinary circumstances” that would cause the Board to adjourn a hearing over the objections of one of the other parties.
Surely the business of the applicant does not come to a standstill because its president is away on a business trip. The Board directs the applicant’s attention to paragraph 4 of the Notice of Hearing dated March 28, 2000 which states:
IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND THE HEARING, THE BOARD MAY DECIDE THE APPLICATION WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE TO YOU AND WITHOUT CONSIDERING ANY DOCUMENT FILED BY YOU.
- The request for reconsideration is denied.
“Inge M. Stamp”
for the Board