Luckily the Superior Court struck down this insane decision, but it ain’t over. “Superior Court rules Ontario Human Rights Tribunal hearing was unfair,” by Moira Welsh for the Toronto Star, February 1 (thanks to the incomparable and peerless Kathy Shaidle):
A Mississauga businesswoman whose home was ordered seized to pay an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal award to a former employee can keep her house — for now.
The Superior Court struck down the “fatally flawed” decision as so unfair to defendant Maxcine Telfer — who represented herself in the hearing — that it was “simply not possible to logically follow the pathway taken by the adjudicator.”
That October 2009 decision ordered Telfer to pay $36,000 to a woman who had been her employee for six weeks. Lawyers wanted the sheriff to seize and sell Telfer’s home to collect the money.
The woman who lodged the complaint, Seema Saadi, told the tribunal she felt pressured to wear skirts and heels instead of her hijab. Saadi also said Telfer complained about the smell of food that she warmed in the microwave.
The three-judge Superior Court panel ordered the tribunal to hold a new hearing before a different adjudicator, expected to be held in the next six months.
It also dismissed Telfer’s $36,000 penalty, which ended a plan by the complainant’s lawyers to get the money by ordering the sheriff to sell her house….