John v. Swedcan Lumican Plastics Inc., 2025 ONSC 3022
In 2018, an application was filed alleging discrimination in employment on the basis of disability. The applicant was fired when he went on leave because of injuries. In 2019, the respondents brought a motion for a summary hearing and early dismissal. This was denied by the assigned adjudicator and a hearing on the merits began in March 2020. After one day of oral evidence, the HRTO failed to schedule further hearing days and the adjudicator left the Tribunal in 2021.
The HRTO took no further steps until 2024, when the case was assigned to a different adjudicator. The new adjudicator determined that a summary hearing would be held, which then led to the dismissal of the case on the basis that there was no reasonable prospect of success. The new adjudicator failed to acknowledge that a hearing on the merits had already commenced four years earlier.
The Court found:
No justification was offered by the HRTO for this change in procedure. There is no declaration in evidence that the 2020 merits hearing had been quashed or acknowledgement even that it had begun. Submissions by counsel for the applicant that expressed concern about the change in procedure were never formally acknowledged or addressed by the HRTO.
The Court found this was fundamentally unfair, and also noted that the case was dismissed following the summary hearing principally because the adjudicator found there was no evidence to support the applicant’s allegations. The Court found that this was plainly not correct and that this would be another reason to quash the decision.