Richard J. Charney

The applicant filed human rights applications alleging discrimination in employment on the basis of disability and reprisal against his employer, several individual employees, and the occupational health consultants retained by the employer.

The Tribunal held a summary hearing to determine whether the occupational health consultants and their employer should be removed as respondents.

The Tribunal found that the applicant failed to allege facts that could constitute discrimination or reprisal by the medical consultants, as disagreements with medical judgments do not amount to discrimination under the Code.

The Tribunal dismissed the applications against the medical consultants and their employer, and also removed the individual employee respondents as the employer accepted full responsibility for their actions.

The union and the employers' association failed to reach a new collective agreement for the residential construction sector.

An arbitrator was appointed under the Labour Relations Act, 1995.

The employers' association argued the arbitrator's jurisdiction was limited to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), while the union argued for a province-wide award.

The arbitrator determined he had jurisdiction to make a province-wide award to avoid fracturing the bargaining unit.

The Divisional Court quashed the award for areas outside the GTA.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the standard of review for the arbitrator's jurisdictional decision was reasonableness.

The Court found the arbitrator's decision was reasonable and restored the province-wide award.

The applicant requested reconsideration of an interim decision that removed seven personal respondents from his human rights application.

The Tribunal denied the request, finding that the interim decision was not a 'final decision' within the meaning of the Tribunal's Rules, as it did not dispose of the central issues or deprive the applicant of a remedy.

Furthermore, the applicant failed to establish that the decision conflicted with established jurisprudence or raised a matter of general or public importance.

The applicant employer sought judicial review of a Grievance Settlement Board arbitration award that ordered rectification of a collective agreement's recognition clause.

The Board found that exclusionary language regarding office and technical staff had been inserted by mistake.

The Divisional Court held that the standard of review for an arbitrator's application of the equitable doctrine of rectification is reasonableness.

The Court upheld the Board's decision to rectify the agreement by removing the mistakenly inserted language.

However, the Court found the Board's subsequent interpretation of the rectified clause and its order for the parties to draft new language to be unreasonable, and set aside that portion of the award.

The applicant requested that the Tribunal anonymize a previously issued decision dismissing her application, citing the need to protect her privacy, dignity, and sensitive medical history.

The respondents did not oppose the request.

Treating the request as a Request for Reconsideration under the Tribunal's Rules, the adjudicator granted the request, noting that failing to anonymize the decision would defeat the purpose of a previously anonymized grievance arbitration decision involving the applicant.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and reprisal on the basis of race, colour, ethnic origin, disability, and sex, culminating in her termination.

The respondents brought a preliminary request to dismiss the application.

The Tribunal dismissed the allegations relating to the applicant's termination under section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, finding that a prior grievance arbitration had already appropriately dealt with the substance of those claims by determining she was terminated for just cause (dishonesty) rather than disability discrimination.

The Tribunal also dismissed the remaining allegations, finding them to be either untimely, not part of a continuous series of incidents, or lacking a reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant sought judicial review of an interest arbitration award that imposed a province-wide collective agreement.

The Arbitrator was appointed under the Labour Relations Act to resolve a dispute in the residential construction sector.

The applicant argued the Arbitrator's jurisdiction was statutorily limited to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

The Divisional Court agreed, finding that the legislation expressly restricted the Arbitrator's authority to the GTA and that he could not use a regulation to expand his jurisdiction and interfere with the parties' right to strike or lockout outside the GTA.

The non-GTA portion of the award was quashed.

The applicant sought judicial review of an arbitration award that declared pre-access alcohol and drug testing, implemented in response to Suncor's site access requirements, violated the collective agreement.

The Divisional Court applied the reasonableness standard of review and upheld the arbitrator's decision, which relied on the Supreme Court of Canada's framework in Irving Pulp & Paper.

The court found the arbitrator reasonably concluded there was no evidence of a substance abuse problem at the Sarnia worksite to justify the privacy intrusion of pre-access testing.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an interest arbitration award, arguing the arbitrator denied procedural fairness by failing to disclose a dispute over the cost of a step progression freeze, making a finding without evidence, and refusing to order production of certain financial source documents.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the arbitrator's procedures and disclosure rulings were reasonable given the flexible and informal nature of interest arbitration.

The court also found there was sufficient evidence in the parties' briefs to support the arbitrator's findings on the cost of the step progression freeze.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and reprisal regarding disability accommodation by his employer and several individuals.

The respondents requested that the application be deferred because the applicant's union had filed grievances regarding the same matters.

The Tribunal found that although the remaining grievance alleged a breach of the collective agreement rather than a Code violation, the arbitrator had the jurisdiction to apply human rights law, and deferral was appropriate to avoid conflicting factual determinations.

The request to defer was granted.

The applicant requested reactivation of her human rights application, which had been deferred pending a union grievance arbitration.

The arbitrator had upheld her termination and found no discrimination based on disability.

The respondents did not oppose reactivation but requested dismissal under s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code and for lack of a reasonable prospect of success on the remaining grounds.

The Tribunal granted the request to reactivate and ordered a summary teleconference hearing to address whether the allegations should be dismissed, whether they have a reasonable prospect of success, and whether certain corporate and personal respondents should be removed or added.

A proposed intervenor sought leave to participate extensively in a constitutional application challenging the Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, legislation enacted to end a postal workers’ strike.

The proposed intervenor requested rights to adduce evidence, cross‑examine witnesses, and make full submissions similar to the parties.

The court applied Rule 13.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and the governing intervention principles, including whether the intervenor would make a useful contribution without causing injustice to the existing parties.

The court held that the proposed evidence was largely argumentative and duplicative of arguments available to existing parties, particularly Canada Post and the Attorney General.

Finding the intervention would not assist the court and could expand the record unnecessarily, the motion was dismissed.

The respondent union requested an order to dismiss the human rights application for disclosing no prima facie case and for delay.

The Tribunal denied the request for a summary hearing.

However, the Tribunal dismissed the allegations relating to incidents between May and August 2010 for delay, finding that the applicant failed to provide a good faith explanation for filing the application more than one year after the incidents occurred.

The respondent employer filed a Request for Order During Proceedings seeking the production of the applicant's unredacted medical records dating back to 1997.

The applicant opposed the request, arguing the redacted information was not arguably relevant and production would violate her privacy.

The Tribunal found that the applicant had made her health arguably relevant through her testimony.

The Tribunal ordered the production of unredacted medical records, but limited the temporal scope to the period from September 2004, when the applicant first referenced her health, to February 2013, her last day of testimony.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and reprisal regarding her termination.

The termination was also the subject of a concurrent grievance scheduled for arbitration.

The Tribunal issued a Notice of Intent to Defer.

The applicant opposed deferral, while the respondents supported it.

The Tribunal found substantial overlap between the facts, human rights issues, and remedies sought in both proceedings.

To ensure the orderly administration of justice and avoid inconsistent decisions, the Tribunal deferred the application pending the completion of the arbitration process.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an arbitration award that held the union was estopped from proceeding with a grievance regarding the contracting out of a position.

The arbitrator had found that the union's conduct led the company to rely on a settlement to its detriment.

The Divisional Court found the arbitrator's findings on estoppel were inconsistent with his earlier factual findings that the company's representative had merely made an assumption about the union's intentions.

The court concluded the arbitrator's decision was unreasonable, quashed the award, and remitted the grievance to a different arbitrator.

The appellant construction trade unions challenged the constitutionality of s. 127.2 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995, which allows a 'non-construction employer' to terminate collective agreements and bargaining rights in the construction industry.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board found the provision violated s. 2(d) of the Charter.

The Divisional Court reversed this decision.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the Divisional Court's ruling, finding that s. 127.2 does not substantially interfere with the process of collective bargaining because employees of non-construction employers can still organize under the general provisions of the Act.

The appeal was dismissed.

The corporate respondent requested reconsideration of an interim decision that denied its requests to add the union and its president as respondents, and to order the production of Minutes of Settlement.

The Tribunal dismissed the request, finding that the decision regarding document production was interlocutory and not a final decision subject to reconsideration.

Furthermore, the Tribunal held that the respondent failed to establish any of the threshold criteria for reconsidering the refusal to add the union president as a party, as the submissions merely re-argued issues already decided.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging sex discrimination and reprisal by her employer and several individual respondents.

In this interim decision, the Tribunal addressed multiple requests for orders during proceedings.

The Tribunal allowed the applicant to amend her application to include allegations regarding a February 2011 email but denied amendments for other untimely or unrelated allegations.

The Tribunal denied the applicant's request to anonymize her identity, finding no special circumstances to override the open justice principle.

The Tribunal also dismissed the employer's request to reconsider a previous decision refusing to add the union as a respondent, denied the employer's request to add the union president as a personal respondent, and declined to order the production of confidential union settlement minutes.

The applicant, a 66-year-old university professor, alleged age discrimination and reprisal after she was not selected for the long short-list for a Co-Director position at a research centre.

The Tribunal found that the hiring committee had credible, rational, and non-discriminatory reasons for not selecting the applicant, including her lack of academic fund-raising experience, limited administrative experience in a research centre context, and concerns about her collegiality and conduct.

The Tribunal also dismissed the reprisal allegation, finding no evidence that the hiring committee was aware of her public opposition to the university's mandatory retirement policy or that it factored into their decision.

Finally, the Tribunal dismissed the allegation that the university failed to investigate her complaint, finding she had not properly raised an internal complaint that would trigger a duty to investigate.

The application was dismissed.