The HRTO says my application is abandoned. Can I get it back?
Deemed abandonment means the Tribunal closed your file because a required step was missed — a form, a deadline, an appearance — not because anyone decided your case lacked merit. You can ask for reconsideration, and you can seek judicial review in Divisional Court within 30 days. Both are hard, and both are much easier if you move immediately: the single most common reason people lose this route is time.
Deemed abandonment means the Tribunal closed your file because it did not receive something it required — a response to a direction, attendance at a hearing, or a form — not because it decided your case. You can request reconsideration, generally within 30 days. Act immediately: the window is short and reconsideration succeeds mainly where the Tribunal's own records show you did in fact respond.
Journey · deemed abandonment
Information from the public record, not legal advice.
What this stage is
An application is "deemed abandoned" when the Tribunal decides you have stopped participating — you didn't respond to a direction, didn't confirm you were proceeding, or couldn't be reached. The file closes with a short dismissal. No one weighs your evidence. Nothing about the merits is decided, ever.
The single largest way cases end
In our corpus it is not close: 13 of 37 matters — 35% — ended as abandoned. That is more than screening, more than timeliness, more than every merits outcome combined. Province-wide the trend is worse and accelerating: Tribunal Watch Ontario found fewer than 400 abandonment dismissals a year in 2017–18, and more than 1,000 a year by 2023–24 — a tripling — which they connect to the Tribunal issuing demands for complex legal submissions that unrepresented people cannot meet, in a system where 80% of applicants file without counsel.
And here is the number that reframes the whole category: in our corpus, zero represented matters ended by abandonment. 46% of unrepresented ones did. People with lawyers do not "lose interest" at dramatically different rates than people without. What abandonment measures is not seriousness. It is capacity — to keep receiving mail at the same address across a multi-year case, to answer legal documents on deadlines, to sustain a proceeding for the four-plus years a hearing now takes, while working, moving, parenting, or being unwell.
An exit is not a verdict. A matter dismissed as abandoned tells you nothing about whether the discrimination happened. It tells you the process outlasted the person.
What the record shows about not becoming this statistic
Everything gets a response, even "I need more time." Silence is the only fatal answer. A one-page letter requesting an extension, sent before the deadline, keeps a file alive; a perfect submission three days late may not.
The Tribunal must be able to find you. Update your address and email with the Tribunal the day they change, in writing. Files in the record died because directions went to old addresses. The system deems unreceived mail to be ignored mail.
Confirm calls in writing the same day. If anything is agreed or said by phone — with the Tribunal, the respondent, anyone — email a two-line summary that day. The record repeatedly shows phone events that later have no agreed existence.
Calendar the case, not just the deadlines. A deferral must be reactivated within 60 days of the other proceeding ending; in the record, day 71 was fatal. Long silence from the Tribunal does not mean nothing is required of you next.
If you truly can't continue, withdraw deliberately rather than vanish. A withdrawal (Form 10) is a decision you make; abandonment is one made about you. If there is any settlement discussion alive, disappearing ends it.
What we can't tell you
Why people abandon. The public record shows only the dismissal — never whether the person settled privately, gave up, moved, fell ill, or died. Ontario collects the disposition but not the reason, and publishes neither. Distinguishing exhaustion from resolution is one of the core questions our planned access requests are built to answer. FOI Tracker.
Next: Getting help
Published in good faith from public records as fair comment on matters of public interest. Believed accurate at the review date; errors will be corrected on notice. Information, not legal advice; no lawyer-client relationship is created.
Common questions
Was my case decided?
No. Abandonment is not a finding about whether discrimination happened. In our corpora it is the single largest ending — 13 of 37 Durham matters.
How do I get it reconsidered?
File a Request for Reconsideration promptly, attaching proof of what you sent and when — emails, upload confirmations, delivery receipts.
Do reconsiderations work?
Rarely, and mostly for one reason: Tribunal Watch Ontario found that in 2023–24, 29 of 39 successful reconsiderations were granted because of the Tribunal's own administrative errors, mostly documents applicants had submitted not being uploaded. Proof of sending is everything.
What if reconsideration is refused?
The remaining route is judicial review in Divisional Court, with a 30-day deadline and real cost. For most self-represented applicants in our record, that route is functionally out of reach.
How do I avoid this?
Copy the Tribunal on everything. One matter in our record — the most consequential in the province — ended because an adjournment request went only to opposing counsel and never to the Tribunal.
Does abandoned mean I lost?
No. It means nothing was decided. In our Durham corpus, dismissal as abandoned is the single largest ending — 13 of 37 matters — and none of them involved any assessment of the evidence.
What can I do first?
Request reconsideration, explaining what happened and why. Do it in writing and immediately.
How long do I have for judicial review?
Thirty days, under a deadline added in 2021 where none existed before. Extensions are discretionary.
Does this happen more to unrepresented people?
In our record, 46% of unrepresented matters ended as abandoned against 0% of represented ones.
Is it ever the Tribunal's own error?
Sometimes. In 2023–24, 29 of 39 successful reconsiderations province-wide were granted because of the Tribunal's own administrative errors, mostly failures to upload documents applicants had in fact filed.