Human Rights Law in Ontario

The Ontario Human Rights Code’s preamble states its purpose, in part, is “the creation of a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person”. The Code is not intended to “punish” a person or company that engages in discrimination. Rather it is remedial or restorative, aiming to compensate the person who has experienced discrimination. The overriding goal of the Code is ultimately the elimination of discrimination within the Province of Ontario.

When an individual who believes she or he has experienced discrimination is completing an application, it is important to carefully consider who will be named as respondents. It is important to applicants that the perpetrators of discrimination are held to account – whether they are individual or an organization. A finding of discrimination will often provide validation to an applicant and re-affirm his or her value as a person, as well as their dignity and sense of belonging. In these cases, individuals who are alleged to have engaged in discrimination should be named along with the company.

Naming Individual Respondents – Two Scenarios

 

Over the past few years, a troubling trend has emerged in the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario’s case law relating to the naming and removal of individual respondents. To fully flush this out, it is important to distinguish between two very different scenarios:

1. Betty files an application against her employer, a regional municipality. In addition to naming the municipality as a respondent, she also names the mayor, the deputy mayor and the COO – all of whom were not involved personally with the facts that give rise to her human rights application.

2. John files an application against his employer, a regional municipality, and also against his immediate supervisor who regularly made inappropriate remarks and slurs toward John because of his race.

Scenario one above happens all too often and is a legitimate concern. Naming individuals who have nothing to do with the facts of an application unnecessarily adds to the complexity of a proceeding and is inappropriate.

Scenario two, however, is markedly different. John should be permitted to pursue an application against his immediate supervisor – the individual who engaged in conduct that was demeaning and derogatory toward John on the basis of his race. Of course, the employer is also responsible for John’s conduct by virtue of section 46.3 of the Code which imputes liability to a corporation for the employee’s actions and omissions done in the course of his employment.

The Tribunal Goes Too Far to Remedy Inappropriate Naming of Individual Respondents

 

In an effort to counter the inappropriate naming of individual respondents (such as in scenario 1, above), the Tribunal has gone too far. Its jurisprudence now encroaches into the territory of appropriately named individual respondents. Consider the following:

In Delargie v. St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (2015),[i] Vice-Chair Alison Renton considered a request from the respondents to remove an individual respondent who was named along with the organizational respondent. The Tribunal specifically noted that the individual respondent’s conduct was “central to this case”; however, it removed the individual respondent nonetheless, stating at paragraph 8:

In the circumstances of this case, the individual conduct of the personal respondent is central to this case. While the organizational respondent has not explicitly stated that it would assume liability for the personal respondent in the event that Code violations were found, a joint Response was filed on behalf of both respondents, and the respondents submit both that the personal respondent was not acting outside the scope of her authority and that the factors set out in Persaud, above, support their request to remove the personal respondent. Implicitly the organizational respondent has represented that it will assume liability for the personal respondent’s actions. [bolding added]

The reasoning of the Tribunal in Delargie appears to be – the individual respondent is alleged to have engaged in actions that on their own may be a violation of the Code; however there is an organization  with the financial capacity to assume liability for the employee’s actions, such that we should remove the individual who may have engaged in discriminatory conduct. What happened to accountability? What message does it send when the Tribunal will simply release individuals accused of discrimination because they work for a company that has money? Is the overarching aim of the Code being furthered by this practice? When did section 46.3 of the Code (which imputes liability on the employer for the employee’s actions) become sufficient to release the individual employee?

In Breau v. Halton (Regional Municipality) (2016),[ii] the Applicant raised these principles when opposing a request to remove the individual respondents. Specifically, in opposition to the request, the Applicant stated:

The Code is remedial and restorative – it is not punitive. The Applicant is not requesting that the personal respondents remain a part of the Application for punitive reasons, but rather because the Applicant, and society at large, have an interest in ensuring that remedies are ordered against perpetrators of discrimination in order to achieve one of the primary purposes of the Code, the elimination of discrimination…

There is a troubling trend appearing recently in Tribunal jurisprudence that appears to simply release personal respondents should the corporate respondent accept liability on their behalf and agree to cover any remedy ordered. In the Tribunal’s search for efficiency, it seemingly, in some cases, fails to give credence to the remedial nature of the Code and something is lost in that process. Individuals should be held to account for their independent, discriminatory actions. In this case, the personal respondents should not be removed.

Again, the Tribunal removed the individual respondents, stating at paragraph 14:

…There is an organization respondent (the Regional Municipality of Halton) in the proceeding that is alleged to be liable for the same alleged conduct as them, no issue has been raised to the organization respondent’s deemed or vicarious liability for their alleged conduct, there is no issue as to the ability of the organization respondent to respond to or remedy any infringements of the Code, and no real prejudice would be caused to the applicant or any other party as a result of removing them as respondents to the Application. The reasons that the applicant raised to continue the proceeding against the [individual respondents] have some merit, but I do not agree that they are sufficiently compelling to continue the proceeding against them…

If we hope to reduce discrimination in Ontario, holding individual perpetrators of discrimination accountable for their actions is important. If we hope to provide redress to those who have experienced discrimination, allowing them to advance their claim against each party who perpetrated the discrimination is important. If the perpetrator simply becomes a witness to the process, something meaningful for an applicant is lost.

I recognize the Tribunal wishes to eliminate the number of respondents to ensure the hearing does not become unnecessarily complex. Proceeding against the individuals who are alleged to have individually perpetrated the discrimination, alongside the organizational respondent if there is one, is necessary if we hope to prevent discrimination and provide meaningful redress.

Another practical consideration is that organizational respondents may go bankrupt. Without an individual respondent, some applicants may find themselves without any potential for compensation.

Steps in the Right Direction?

 

The same arguments put forward in Delargie were raised before the Tribunal recently in Nakazi v. Bowland Dental Laboratories (2017).[iii] In an interim decision, Vice-Chair Laurie Letheren refused to remove the individual respondent, stating:

Although there are two corporate respondents to this Application, there remains a possibility that the Tribunal could find that [the individual respondent] was personally liable for his own conduct which amounted to a breach of the Code…it remains potentially open to the Tribunal to make findings of liability and require monetary remedies specifically from the personal respondents for their actions if it was to find that these actions were discriminatory.[iv]

This ruling may seem narrow, in that the Tribunal would only retain an individual respondent where there is a possibility that liability may fall outside of the vicarious liability provision in section 46.3 of the Code. I do not believe this is what the adjudicator in this decision meant to imply because she then went out to cite the Divisional Court in  Human Rights Commission v. Farris (2012),[v] where that Court, stated:

The fact that a corporate respondent may also be jointly and severally liable for the conduct of employees is not a basis to insulate the employees from personal liability…The purpose of s. 46.3 of the Code is to confirm the parallel statutory liability of corporations for the actions of their employees, not to replace it.

The Divisional Court goes on to explicitly state in Farris that one of the “fundamental principles of human rights law” is:

…a finding of corporate liability is not meant to act as a shield against a finding of individual liability where the acts of the individual constitute a violation of the Code.

Unfortunately, to date, the Divisional Court’s guidance on this issue has not been consistently followed by the Tribunal.

Conclusion

 
Hopefully, we are seeing a reversal of the Tribunal’s trend to remove individual respondents where an organization is also named as a respondent.

Future applicants to the Tribunal should give thought to whether individuals have personally engaged in behaviour which could be a violation of the Code – if they have, they should be named as respondents. The inappropriate naming of chief executive officers, mayors, chiefs of police, etc, who do not have personal involvement in the facts giving rise to the application, should be avoided. It is time to bring a principled approach back to who will be held to account for discrimination.