Increasingly, in this “Internet age”, employees are asking employment tribunals to anonymize their names, given that almost all decisions are now posted on the Internet.
In a recent case, an adjudicator refused to anonymize a civil servant’s name in her medical-accommodation grievance against her employer.
The employee is a case officer with an Ontario government ministry. Several years ago she injured her back, wrist and arm at work. The employer accommodated.
A few years later she moved into a different role. She complained that the employer did not accommodate her request to fix certain ergonomic issues at her workstation. She also claimed to have a learning disability and to need a quieter work environment. She said management was uncooperative. She filed a grievance, and asked to have her name anonymized because the grievance involved presentation of medical information.
An adjudicator with the Grievance Settlement Board (GSB) refused the anonymization request. She decided that the “open court principle” applied to the GSB. Claimants should not be permitted to make serious accusations “from behind a veil of anonymity, assured that they will not be identified if they are found not to be credible, their allegations are rejected”. Although in some cases that involve particularly sensitive medical information – such as certain information about a person’s mental health – anonymization might be warranted, medical information about the employee’s back, wrist and arm injury were not so sensitive. As such, the presumption of an “open court” was not displaced and her name would not be anonymized.
Ontario Public Service Employees Union (Cull) v Ontario (Health and Long-Term Care), 2017 CanLII 71798 (ON GSB)
