Bannon v. Mastronardi, 2014 CanLII 99364

IN THE MATTER OF the Farming and Food Production Protection Act, S.O. 1998, C.1.

Board File No.: 2011-04: Bannon v. Mastronardi

BETWEEN:

Patricia Bannon

Applicant

and

Lee Mastronardi and Maria Masatronardi

Respondents

Anthony Little, Q.C., Vice Chair

Patricia Bannon filed an Application for a Hearing pursuant to Section 5 of the Farming and Food Production Protection Act (hereafter the "Act").
The Normal Farm Practices Protection Board (hereafter the "Board") agreed to accept the Application as it related to activities being undertaken on the Respondents' premises which allegedly negatively affected the Applicant's health and comfort by the presence of a nuisance - to wit: noise - emanating from those premises owned by the Respondents which was a consequence of activity not constituting a normal farm practice as defined by the Act.

Prior to the commencement of the Pre-Hearing, pursuant to Rule 65(1) of the Board's Rules of Practice and Procedure, a Conflict Resolution Session was organized.
In any event, as the Conflict Resolution Session and Process did not result in an agreed upon resolution, accordingly, The Normal Farm Practice Protection Board agreed to accept the Complaint and to proceed to a Hearing.
Pursuant to Rules 23 through 27 of the Board's Rules of Practice and Procedure , a Pre-Hearing Conference was arranged to take place on April 20, 2012 in Kingsville, Ontario at which the Applicant, Patricia Bannon and Deborah Rollier, on behalf of the Respondents, Lee Mastronardi and Maria Mastornardi appeared. The necessary steps required by the said Rules of Practice and Procedure were completed at that time and a Decision was issued on June 14, 2012 by the Board's Chair.
As that part of the process concluded, there was an expectation that the Application would be subsequently withdrawn. That withdrawal did not occur; the process then languished unattended for quite some time.
On July 3pt , 2013, Patricia Bannon asked that the proceedings be re-activated. Subsequently, on October 9th , 2013, Sean Bannon became involved as Agent for his mother, the Applicant, also seeking reactivation of the proceedings and became part of the scheduling process.
On November 1st, 2013, Kevin Black joined the proceedings the Agent for the Respondents; he is their son-in-law. Subsequently, Mr. Black has represented the Respondents in all dealings with the Board.
A second Pre-hearing Conference was then scheduled for December 4t11, 2013 at which the Board's Vice Chair would preside.
On that date, despite the participation of Kevin Black and Sean Bannon, the Pre-Hearing Conference did not conclude as further preparatory steps were determined necessary; the delineation of the nature of evidence to be presented by the Parties and the number of witnesses (including possible expert witnesses) had not been fully determined by the Parties.

1 1. An adjourned Pre-Hearing was then scheduled for December 18th, 2013.

On that date, The Pre-Hearing Conference similarly did not proceed as the Applicant's Agent requested a further adjournment for three more weeks as he indicated that further preparatory steps were determined necessary and Counsel might become involved. No fixed date for continuation was set.
Over the next following months, many email messages were exchanged by the Parties and the Board as the Board struggled to bring the Parties to a Pre-Hearing -to no real avail. The proceedings continued to languish with conflicting information being received from time to time as to the intentions of the Applicant regarding the process which the Board had earlier agreed to accept which would have led to an eventual Hearing in the Board's normal course of activity.
Ultimately, on proper Notice to all parties, a Pre-hearing was scheduled to take place on July 16th , 2014 by way of a linked-in toll-free teleconference facility at 1:30 pm.

The Pre-Hearing Conference convened as a teleconference at 1:30 pm with the following participants:

Normal Farm Practices Protection Board

(i) Anthony Little - Vice Chair, Normal Farm Practice Protection Board

(ii) Finbar Desir - Secretary, Normal Farm Practice Protection Board

Applicant

(i) Neither Patricia Bannon nor Sean Bannon - on the Applicant's behalf - called in on the Toll-Free, Pre-aITanged, Conference Call Number between 1:30 and 2:00 pm on July 16th , 2014

Respondents

(i) Kevin Black - Agent for Lee Mastronardi and Maria Mastronardi

It was noted that the participants, the Vice Chair, the Board's Secretary and Kevin Black, while waiting for the Applicant or her Agent or other Representative to join the teleconference, had been engaged in unrelated small talk for fifteen minutes before determining that there was not to be likely involvement by the Applicant or her Agent.
Mr. Little acted as moderator/chair of the Pre-Hearing Conference and called the Pre-Hearing Conference to order at 1:45 pm.
Mr. Little reviewed the history of the proceedings including the steps relating to previously scheduled Pre-hearing dates as well as for this particular Pre-Hearing Conference.
Mr. Little explained the purpose for the Pre-Hearing Conference and indicated that the process would normally specifically consider the provisions of Rule 23 of the Board's Rules of Practice and Procedure . Given that there was no one present or participation on behalf of the Applicant, none of the normal Pre-Hearing steps was taken.
Moreover, in absence of the Pre-Hearing being effectively completed, there seemed no need for any further scheduling steps to be undertaken. Specifically, there seemed no need for a Hearing to be scheduled in face of the failure of the Applicant or her Agent to participate in the Board's activities.
Having reviewed the history of the proceedings to date including recent developments and exchanges of email messages between the Board and the Applicant's Agent, Mr. Little indicated that the Board was prepared to dismiss the Application by Patricia Bannon.
Mr. Little reviewed the possibility of there being an award of Costs made in favour of the Respondents and concluded that this matter (and its manner of conclusion) was not a proper instance for costs to be awarded.

ORDER

The Application by Patricia Bannon is hereby dismissed.

Dated July l61 , 2014 at London, Ontario.

Anthony Little, Q. C., Vice-Chair,

Normal Farm Practice Protection Board