## Facts

- Dr. Pushpa Bhadauria, an East Indian woman with a Ph.D. in mathematics, a teaching certificate, and several years of teaching experience, applied to Seneca College for approximately ten advertised mathematics teaching positions over about four years.
- Seneca College did not grant her any interviews, despite her qualifications, while other applicants were considered.
- She alleged the repeated refusals to interview or hire her were based on race/ethnic origin.
- Rather than pursue the statute’s administrative process, she commenced a civil action for damages alleging (i) breach of statutory duty under Ontario’s human rights legislation prohibiting employment discrimination, and (ii) a common-law tort/cause of action for discrimination grounded in the public policy expressed by that legislation.
- The trial court struck the statement of claim for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

## Issues

1. Whether a common-law tort or civil cause of action exists for discriminatory refusal to hire on prohibited grounds such as race/ethnic origin.
2. Whether a civil damages action can be based on a breach of the statutory anti-discrimination duty, notwithstanding the statute’s administrative complaint mechanism.
3. Whether the pleadings, taken as true on a motion to strike, disclosed a reasonable cause of action.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside the order striking the claim.
- It held the pleadings disclosed a reasonable cause of action and should proceed to trial.
- The court accepted that discriminatory refusal to hire could be actionable in damages at common law, grounded in the public policy against discrimination expressed in the human rights statute.
- It concluded a civil right of action could flow from breach of the statute’s anti-discrimination duty, and that the existence of an administrative process did not, without clear language, exclude a concurrent civil claim.

## Legal Principles

- On a motion to strike, pleaded facts are assumed true; if the claim could succeed on any reasonable view of those facts, it should not be struck.
- Statutory declarations of anti-discrimination policy and duties may inform common law development and support recognition of a civil damages remedy.
- Absent clear statutory exclusion, the presence of an administrative enforcement scheme does not necessarily bar a parallel common-law action based on the same alleged wrong.
- Discriminatory refusal to hire may be framed as a tortious invasion of legally protected civil rights and economic interests, capable of supporting damages.

## Conclusion

The Ontario Court of Appeal held that allegations of repeated race-based denial of employment opportunities could support a common-law damages claim grounded in the statutory anti-discrimination policy and duty, and it reinstated the action as improperly struck at the pleadings stage.


Bhadauria v. Bd. of Governors of Seneca Coll. of Applied Arts & Tech., 27 O.R. 2d 142 (Ont. C.A. 1979)