The six rules that end cases, in the order you meet them
The one-year limit
The rule: An application must be filed within one year of the last incident. Late applications are accepted only if the delay was incurred in good faith and no substantial prejudice results.
What it does to you: Miss it and nothing about the merits of your case is ever considered. This is the most-cited gate in the record.
The one case to read: Miller, 2009 HRTO 1241 — the standard statement of the one-year rule and how the Tribunal applies it.
Deferral to a grievance or another proceeding
The rule: Rule 14 lets the Tribunal defer an application where another proceeding — usually a union grievance — deals with the same facts. The Supreme Court held in Parry Sound that arbitrators have the power and the responsibility to enforce Code rights as if they formed part of the collective agreement.
What it does to you: Your application is paused, sometimes for years, and it does not restart on its own. If you do not file a request to proceed within 60 days of the other process concluding, you can lose it.
The one case to read: Parry Sound (District) Social Services Administration Board v. O.P.S.E.U., 2003 SCC 42 — the single most-cited authority in the corrections corpus — 46 decisions. It is why unionised applicants get sent to arbitration.
Jurisdiction — does the Code apply at all?
The rule: The Tribunal must be satisfied your allegations connect to a protected ground and a covered social area. Section 34 also limits applications to people asserting their own rights.
What it does to you: Dismissed before any evidence is weighed. The Divisional Court held in 2026 that the Tribunal had been applying a harder standard than the settled "plain and obvious" test — after thousands of cases had already been disposed of that way.
The one case to read: Bokhari, 2026 ONSC 1073 — the Divisional Court ruling that the Tribunal's screening approach was unreasonable.
The Case Assessment Direction
The rule: A direction requiring a witness list, witness statements and a case summary by a fixed date.
What it does to you: File the wrong things, or file late, and the application can be dismissed as abandoned — with no hearing and no assessment of the evidence.
The one case to read: the Tribunal's own Rules — and the pattern in the record: partial compliance has ended applications even where the applicant filed something.
Abandonment
The rule: Where a required step is missed — a form, a deadline, an appearance — the Tribunal may deem the application abandoned.
What it does to you: Your file closes with no decision on the merits. Across three institutions this is one of the largest single endings, and it tracks representation: 29% of matters at one institution, 2% at another where 70% had counsel.
The one case to read: the abandonment cohort in our own data — which shows that abandonment is not people giving up — it is people who did not understand what was being asked.
No reasonable prospect of success
The rule: After written submissions, the Tribunal may dismiss an application it concludes has no reasonable prospect of succeeding.
What it does to you: Dismissal on paper. Since October 2024 summary hearings have been eliminated, so the written process is the process.
The one case to read: Dabic, 2010 HRTO 1994 — the standard statement of the no-reasonable-prospect test.
If you get through: the law that actually decides discrimination
These authorities appear in a small minority of decisions — not because they are unimportant, but because most cases end before anyone reaches them.
| Authority | What it does | How often it appears |
|---|---|---|
| O'Malley, 1985 | The prima facie test: you must show the protected ground was a factor in adverse treatment | 7% |
| Stewart v. Elk Valley Coal, 2017 SCC 30 | Confirms the threshold is contribution — the ground need only be a factor, not the cause | — |
| Moore, 2012 SCC 61 | Undue hardship and whether conduct was reasonably necessary | 0.4% |
| Noble, 2010 HRTO 878 | The reprisal test — a free-standing wrong that survives the failure of the main claim | 1.7% |
| Shaw v. Phipps, 2012 ONCA 155 | Circumstantial evidence and inference in profiling cases | 0.4% |
| Intersectionality | Discrimination on combined grounds | 0% |
What to do with this page
If you are about to file: read gates 01 and 03, and start the three CAD documents now. If you have already filed and received a letter you do not understand, it is almost certainly gate 03 or gate 04 — and the deadline on it is real. If you have been dismissed, gate 05 and gate 06 are the two most likely reasons, and both have routes: reconsideration, and judicial review within 30 days.
Frequencies are from a text pass over 484 Ontario corrections decisions, 1984–2026; the gate:substance citation ratio holds across all three institutions studied (4.6:1, 5.7:1, 2.8:1). Coding source: text-verified. This is information about how a process works, not legal advice.