|
Presentation - Duties of Presenters. Zhao v. Chao
In Zhao v. Chao (Div Court, 2022) the Divisional Court (Corbett J, who hears a lot of these appeals), hearing a landlord's appeal, characterized the nature of the LTB and compared it to the Small Claims Court as being suited for people who must either learn it's procedures and undertake to present their case themselves, or otherwise hire representation:[4] All parties attending the Landlord and Tenant Board are expected to become familiar with the process at the Board and the hearing process, to obtain representation if they feel that they are unable to participate in the process without that assistance. In this case, we have the landlord, who owns the unit, and chose to be self-represented rather than to engage a paralegal or lawyer or to obtain advice prior to the hearing, and who then chose to make her own decisions about what evidence to tender at the hearing. This is not a basis to permit the landlord to adduce fresh evidence after the Board’s decision.
[5] The Landlord and Tenant Board is very much like the Small Claims Court in that it has a great many people who are self-represented or are represented by agents who are inexperienced. The process before the Board will be defeated in large part if a party can avoid its failure to bring all of its evidence to the hearing by simply saying that he/she was self-represented, and did not know any better, and so should have a re-hearing on fresh evidence in this court after receiving adverse decision from the Board. In my view, through the exercise of due diligence, this evidence could have been available at the hearing and that in of itself is a complete answer to the application for fresh evidence.
|
