The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has granted a former Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) worker the right to amend his statement of claim against the TTC to include damages for human rights violations.
This decision follows a complex legal battle in which the worker’s initial human rights complaint was dismissed by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) to avoid duplicative proceedings.
S.K., who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, initially filed separate claims for reinstatement and damages for wrongful dismissal and discrimination against the TTC. The HRTO dismissed his application, ruling that the claims were part of a single factual matrix that should be decided in one forum. The TTC then opposed his attempt to amend his civil lawsuit to include human rights damages, arguing it was an abuse of process.
Associate Justice Jolley rejected the TTC’s objections, emphasizing fairness and consistency in legal proceedings. The judge noted that the TTC had previously argued that all issues should be resolved in the civil action, leading to the HRTO’s dismissal of the complaint.
“I find it would be unfair for the plaintiff to be denied the opportunity to pursue his human rights damages claim in this action, on the basis of the doctrine of election or on any other basis, when this is the very ground the defendant relied on its HRTO motion – that all issues should be heard in one forum,” Justice Jolley wrote.
The court also addressed the TTC’s argument regarding the expiration of the limitation period for adding new claims. Justice Jolley clarified that S.K. was not alleging a new cause of action but seeking additional remedies arising from the same facts already pleaded.
“Where a claim already pleads substantially all of the material facts that give rise to the further proposed remedies, amendments that set out an alternative claim for relief arising out of the same general factual matrix previously pleaded are not a new cause of action,” the decision stated, referencing similar rulings in previous cases.
The TTC’s attempt to prevent S.K. from amending his claim was seen as contradictory, given its stance before the HRTO. Justice Jolley pointed out that the TTC had already defended against these allegations in the HRTO, indicating awareness and preparedness to address the human rights claims.
“The defendant’s argument that the claim is statute barred flies in the face of its position before the HRTO that both actions made the same allegations of discrimination and failure to accommodate and were, in effect, ‘the same complaint,'” the ruling noted.
The decision allows S.K. to pursue damages for human rights violations alongside his wrongful dismissal claim, maintaining that the amendments do not introduce a fundamentally different claim.
“An amendment does not assert a new cause of action – and therefore is not impermissibly statute-barred – if the original pleading contains all the facts necessary to support the amendments … such that the amendments simply claim additional forms of relief, or clarify the relief sought, based on the same facts as originally pleaded,” the court cited from the 2019 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in Klassen v. Beausoleil.
Justice Jolley also dismissed concerns about prejudice to the TTC, noting that the organization had been aware of S.K.’s human rights claims since 2019 and had already defended these allegations in the HRTO proceedings.
In conclusion, the court granted S.K. leave to amend his statement of claim, allowing him to seek damages for human rights discrimination in addition to his wrongful dismissal claim. The TTC was ordered to pay $5,000 in costs to S.K., reflecting a reasonable expectation of legal expenses.
For more information, see Kanhai v Toronto Transit Commission, 2024 ONSC 3986 (CanLII).
