View cases - Stewart McKelvey

I. INTRODUCTION[1] This is an employment discrimination case on the basis of sections 7 and 10 of theCanadian Human Rights Act (the “CHRA”). Cindy Richards (the “Complainant”) filed acomplaint alleging that the Respondent, the Canadian National Railway (“CN”) has discriminatedagainst her on the basis of her family status by failing to accommodate her and by terminating heremployment.[2] CN denies the complainant’s allegations.2010 CHRT 24 (CanLII)[3] All the parties, including the Canadian Human Rights Commission (“CHRC”), werepresent at the hearing and were represented by counsel.[4] There are two other similar complaints filed against CN. By agreement of the parties, thematter in Denise Seeley v. CN was treated in a different hearing which was heard prior to this one.Although heard together, it was agreed during a case management conference that the complaintsof Cindy Richards and Kasha A. Whyte would be rendered in two different decisions.[5] Although the facts in the Seeley case and in the Richards and Whyte cases are very similarand that the witnesses for CN were the same, except for Cathy Smolynek who only testified in thetwo latter cases, the evidence submitted in the Seeley case and in the Richards and Whyte cases is,in many regards, different. The witnesses of CN, who had testified previously in the Seeleymatter, did not, without necessarily contradicting themselves, repeat exactly the same evidence inthe Richards and Whyte cases. Also, documents which had not been presented at the Seeleyhearing were filed as evidence in the Richards and Whyte cases. These differences will explainany discrepancies that may exist in the facts of the Richards and Whyte matter when they arecompared to the Seeley decision.