Human rights application following arbitration decision would 're-litigate' case: Tribunal
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a worker’s human rights application because the issues were properly addressed in a labour arbitration.
The worker was an elementary school teacher for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board since 1987 and his employment was governed by a collective agreement between the board and his teachers’ union.
The worker was totally disabled from his employment from Oct. 5, 2015, to Feb. 1, 2018, during which time he received long-term disability (LTD) benefits. In March 2018, he sought to return to work.
However, the board determined that, based on the worker’s limitations and restrictions from a disability, he was unable to perform the essential duties of a teacher. As a result, the board was unable to provide accommodated work.
Accommodation grievance
In June 2018, the union filed an accommodation grievance on the worker’s behalf, which proceeded to an arbitration hearing. The grievance asserted that the board failed to accommodate and return the worker to active teaching duties following his two-and-a-half years of medical leave. The board denied any breach of the collective agreement or the Ontario Human Rights Code, relying on s. 17(1) of the Code, which states that a right under the code isn’t infringed if a person is incapable of performing the essential duties of their position because of disability.
The worker also filed a human rights application alleging discrimination with respect to employment because of age, creed, and disability. He later requested to defer his application pending completion of the arbitration proceeding, which the tribunal granted.
On July 4, 2023, an arbitrator dismissed the grievance, finding that the worker’s medical condition rendered him unable to perform the essential duties of his regular position of teacher. As a result, there was no breach of either the collective agreement or the code, said the arbitrator.
The worker then sought to reactivate his discrimination application but the board opposed the request, arguing that the application should be dismissed under s. 45.1 of the code – which allows the tribunal to dismiss an application if another proceeding has appropriately dealt with its substance - as the arbitration proceeding had already addressed the substance of the application.
Concurrent jurisdiction for human rights
The tribunal found that it had been established in previous decisions that a grievance or arbitration process is a “proceeding” for the purposes of s. 45.1. It also found that labour arbitrators had concurrent jurisdiction to decide human rights issues and the issues in the worker’s application were essentially the same as those in the arbitration proceeding.
The tribunal noted that the worker, through his union, had the opportunity to raise code-related issues during the arbitration and there was no basis to find that the arbitrator didn’t deal with the substance of the worker’s application. In addition, the worker had the opportunity to know the case to be met and to respond to it, with the benefit of legal representation, said the tribunal
The tribunal determined that it wouldn’t be unfair to prevent the worker from proceeding with his application, as it would be contrary to the interests of fairness to permit re-litigation of issues already decided.
The tribunal dismissed the worker’s discrimination application in its entirety under s. 45.1 of the code, finding that the substance of the application had been appropriately dealt with in the prior arbitration proceeding. See Wozniak v. Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, 2025 HRTO 1625.
