In 2565851 Alberta Ltd. operating as Classic Hair and Beauty Salon v Bhullar, 2025 ABESAB 12, an employer appealed an Order of Officer made under the Alberta Employment Standards Code complaint process, which required them to pay an employee some money.
The employer failed to show up at the appeal hearing. The Employment Standards Director is present at these hearings, and successfully applied to have the appeal declared abandoned for non-attendance.
This case should serve as a reminder to all parties: you should never just not show up for a court date any kind. Make it if you can. If you can’t make it, at least let everyone know why before its too late.
Facts
The following were some of the pertinent facts summarized by the Alberta Labour Relations Board, sitting as appeal body:
- The employer had been ordered by employment standards to pay the employee some money
- The employer appealed
- The appeal was filed by the employer’s representative
- The corporate registry records showed that the same representative was the sole shareholder and director of the employer
- The Employment Standards Registry Office had provided the parties with a proposed hearing date that was about 6 months away. The employer did not respond. It was scheduled for that hearing date
- A formal notice of the date and time of the appeal hearing was sent to the employer’s representative over a month before the hearing date
- The Appeals Officer provided a documents for the appeal to the employer and heard no response
- No one from the employer attended the case management meeting held 3 weeks before the scheduled hearing. A case management direction was produced at that case management which indicated that the hearing was going forward as scheduled, and if the employer did not attend they were at risk of losing the appeal
- No one from the employer attended the scheduled hearing
Analysis / Conclusion
Section 103(a) of the Employment Standards Code provides as follows:
103 At a hearing,
- If the appellant fails to appear, the appeal body may declare the appeal abandoned or adjourn the matter…
One possible result when a party does not attend a hearing is for the hearing to be adjourned.
Chair Schlesinger decided that the matter should be dismissed instead of adjourned, as follows:
[5] […] the Appeal Body is satisfied that the Appellant was aware of the date, time, and (virtual) location of the appeal hearing, as well as the consequences of a failure to attend. Notwithstanding that awareness, the Appellant elected not to attend the hearing. The Appellant has not been responsive to repeated attempts by the Appeals Officer to discuss the appeal and has failed to respond in her inquiries regarding whether the Appellant wished to proceed with the appeal. The Appellant’s lack of engagement in the appeal process since shortly after its appeal was filed, including its failure to attend the case management meeting held on July 25, 2025, indicates that an adjournment is not appropriate in the circumstances and that, by failing to attend the hearing, the Appellant has abandoned its appeal.
My Take
This result is not surprising to me, especially given the compounding effect of ignoring all correspondence and then not appearing at a hearing dealing with a decision about the employee’s rights and protections.
Hearing time with courts and tribunals is a precious judicial resource. The judges, arbitrators and decision-makers from various tribunals are very aware of this fact. They do not like it when parties waste this precious judicial time, and surely, their time as well.
Parties should respond to the other parties in litigation, obviously. Being uncommunicative, coupled with failing to show up for hearings, is a good recipe for trouble with the decision-maker. Even where a claim is not dismissed like this one, usually decision-makers have other meaningful tools to condemn certain behaviors, and they are not afraid to use them.
Bow River Law provides these regular legal blog articles for the purposes of legal news, education and research for the public and the legal profession. These articles should be considered general information and not legal advice. If you have a legal problem, you should speak to a lawyer directly.
Bow River Law is a team of knowledgeable, skilled and experienced employment lawyers handling employment law, human rights (discrimination) and labour law matters. Bow River Law is based in Calgary but we are Alberta’s Workforce Lawyers.
There is no registration required to search and view the blog article database on our website. Happy reading!
