Ryder v. 1034274 BC Ltd. DBA Fresh Cup Saanichton and another (No.2), 2026 BCHRT 213

Date Issued: October 9, 2026
File(s): CS-006151

IN THE MATTER OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CODE,
RSBC 1996, c. 210 (as amended)

AND IN THE MATTER of a complaint before
the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal

BETWEEN:

Norman Ryder
COMPLAINANT

AND:

1034274 BC Ltd. DBA Fresh Cup Saanichton and Jim Townley
RESPONDENTS

REASONS FOR DECISION

APPLICATION TO RECONSIDER A DECISION
RULE 36

Tribunal Member: Laila Said
On their own behalf: Norman Ryder
For the Respondents: No submissions sought

I        INTRODUCTION

[1]             Norman Ryder has environmental sensitivities; specifically, electromagnetic hypersensitivity [EHS]. Mr. Ryder says that, because of his EHS, radiation causes him headaches and stress. Until January 2022, Mr. Ryder was a regular customer of a café in Saanichton called Fresh Cup. Mr. Ryder filed a human rights complaint against Fresh Cup and its owner, James Townley, alleging they had breached s. 8 of the Human Rights Code by failing to accommodate his EHS. The Tribunal dismissed Mr. Ryder’s complaint in Ryder v. 1034274 BC Ltd. DBA Fresh Cup Saanichton and another, 2026 BCHRT 47 [Decision], on the basis that Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving an adverse impact. Mr. Ryder now asks the Tribunal to reconsider the Decision.  

[2]             For the reasons that follow, I decline to reconsider the Decision. Mr. Ryder’s application does not identify a basis for reconsideration that falls within the Tribunal’s narrow jurisdiction to revisit one of its decisions. His application suggests he misunderstands the law governing discrimination complaints under the Code – including when the duty to accommodate is triggered – as well as the reason for dismissing his complaint. In addition, he seeks to reargue the application to dismiss. These are not appropriate reasons to reconsider the Decision.

[3]             In these reasons I refer to both respondents as “Fresh Cup”. Because I decline to reconsider the Decision, I did not find it necessary to seek submissions from Fresh Cup.

II      BACKGROUND

[4]             The background to the complaint is set out in the Decision and I do not repeat it all here: paras. 6-13. In brief, Mr. Ryder was a customer of Fresh Cup for many years. He went to the café almost daily. He would measure radiation levels in the café using an electrometer. He would choose where to sit based on his electrometer’s reading. He would share information about EHS and the readings from his electrometer with others at the café.

[5]             During the Covid-19 pandemic Fresh Cup instituted measures to prevent the spread of the virus. These measures included social distancing and masking while standing or moving around the café. One of the incidents that gave rise to Mr. Ryder’s complaint occurred in the context of these measures. While the parties dispute why the incident occurred and what exactly was said, there was no dispute that Mr. Ryder was standing and talking to another customer when Mr. Townley asked – or in Mr. Ryder’s words – demanded, Mr. Ryder move to another section of the café.  That area of the café, according to Mr. Ryder, had the highest radiation levels in the café. However, Mr. Ryder was on his out of the café at the time and he simply continued on his way out instead of moving to that area of the café.

[6]             Several months later, Fresh Cup closed for renovations. Staff asked Mr. Townley if they could stop serving Mr. Ryder when the café reopened because they said some of his conduct was negatively impacting them. Mr. Townley agreed. When the café reopened Mr. Ryder came in with his electrometer, as he had previously. He expressed concerns that the radiation levels had increased, presumably because of the renovation. He left and came back the next day, as was his routine prior to the renovations. It was on his second visit that Mr. Ryder was told the café would no longer provide him with services.

[7]             Fresh Cup applied to dismiss the complaint without a hearing under s. 27(1)(c) of the Code, as it was permitted to do. Much of Fresh Cup’s dismissal application focused on its reasons for banning Mr. Ryder. However, Mr. Ryder clarified in his response to the dismissal application that he was not arguing that banning him was discriminatory. Rather, his complaint was based on the interaction with Mr. Townley set out above and the café’s renovations: paras. 3 and 21. Therefore, the Decision did not address Fresh Cup’s decision to ban Mr. Ryder except as context.

[8]             With that background in mind, I now turn to the legal principles applicable to reconsideration applications and then explain why I have decided Mr. Ryder’s application does not convince me to exercise my discretion to reconsider the Decision.

III    ANALYSIS AND DECISION

[9]             The Tribunal has a limited jurisdiction to reconsider its own decisions: Tribunal’s Rules of Practice and Procedure [Rules], Rule 36(1). Specifically, the Tribunal may reconsider a decision if it is in the interests of justice and fairness to do so: Routkovskaia v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2012 BCCA 141 at para. 23. The Tribunal exercises this power sparingly, giving due consideration to the principle of finality in administrative proceedings: Grant v. City of Vancouver and others (No. 4), 2007 BCHRT 206 [Grant] at para 10.

[10]         The burden is on the person seeking to have a matter re-opened to show that the interests of fairness and justice demand such an order: Grant at para. 10. That means, Mr. Ryder must convince me that I ought to reconsider the Decision.

[11]         The Tribunal does not have authority to reconsider a decision based on an argument that the decision was wrong or unreasonable or because there has been a change of circumstances: Fraser Health Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, 2014 BCCA 499 [Fraser Health] at paras. 135 and 160. The Tribunal will not reconsider a decision to address arguments that could have been made in the first instance but were not, or to hear a party reargue its case: Ramadan v. Kwantlen Polytechnic University and another (No. 2), 2018 BCHRT 56 at para. 13. The Tribunal will not reconsider a decision when a party simply disagrees with the outcome.

[12]         There are two very narrow exceptions to the finality of a Tribunal decision. One is where the Tribunal makes a non-substantive “slip” or mistake. The other is where the Tribunal fails to exercise the jurisdiction given to it: Fraser Health at para. 141. The second exception may include reconsideration where there has not been procedural fairness: Fraser Health at para. 161.

[13]         I am not persuaded that Mr. Ryder has identified a proper basis to reconsider the Decision. Mr. Ryder’s main argument is that the Decision was not based on his complaint. He says his complaint was about Fresh Cup’s duty to accommodate people with environmental sensitives, which in his case is EHS. He says his accommodation claim was based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which he relied on in his submissions. He suggests that because the Decision does not refer to the Convention, the Decision was not based on his complaint. He also argues that the Decision found he lacked credibility and argues the Tribunal should have examined Mr. Townley’s credibility. In my view, these arguments represent a misunderstanding of the Decision, the law that guided it, and the Tribunal’s process. 

[14]         First, the Decision says that Mr. Ryder alleged the Respondents failed to accommodate his EHS: para. 1. The Tribunal was alive to the nature of Mr. Ryder’s complaint, and this is evident on the face of the Decision. Therefore, to the extent Mr. Ryder’s reconsideration application may be based on an argument that the Decision was unfair because the Tribunal did not consider his submissions, I do not agree.

[15]         Second, the Decision turned on the Tribunal’s finding that Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving he experienced an adverse impact in Fresh Cup’s services: paras. 23-25.  Because the Tribunal found that Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving this element of his case, there was no need for the Tribunal to consider whether Fresh Cup was reasonably certain to prove it had accommodated Mr. Ryder to the point of undue hardship. This is because there is no freestanding duty to accommodate: DL v. BC Ministry of Children and Family Development and others (No 5), 2022 BCHRT 66 at paras. 46 and 76-77; Kemess Mines Ltd v. IUOE, Local 115, 2006 BCCA 58 at para. 28. 

[16]         The duty to accommodate is only triggered if a complainant proves they were adversely impacted by the respondent’s conduct, and that adverse impact was connected to a protected characteristic: British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) v. British Columbia (Council of Human Rights), [1999] 3 SCR 868 [Grismer] at para. 20. The Tribunal was persuaded that Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving adverse impact, so it was unnecessary for the Tribunal to consider the duty to accommodate: Decision at paras. 4 and 21. While there is no doubt that Canada has ratified the Convention, the law the Tribunal is bound to apply is the Code and the well-settled jurisprudence interpreting it. This settled law includes the analytical framework that governs when the duty to accommodate is triggered, as explained in Grismer, and how that does or does not arise within a dismissal application that argues a complaint has no reasonable prospect of success. In these circumstances it is not surprising the Decision did not include an extensive discussion of the duty to accommodate – either generally or specifically as it applied to Mr. Ryders’s EHS – or any reference to the Convention.

[17]         Third, the Decision made no findings about either Mr. Ryder or Mr. Townley’s credibility. The Decision’s reference to credibility is simply part of the Tribunal’s explanation of the legal principles applicable to dismissal applications under s. 27(1)(c): para. 18. The Decision was made based on Mr. Ryder’s version of events and why those events had no reasonable prospect of proving an adverse impact, as that term is understood in human rights law.

[18]         Specifically, the Decision turned on, first, Mr. Ryder’s version of a specific interaction between himself and Mr. Townley. As the Decision says, Mr. Ryder said he was leaving the café when Mr. Townley demanded he move to a part of the café with the highest levels of radiation, but Mr. Ryder left the café as he had intended to do. The Decision concluded that on these facts Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving Mr. Townley’s demand rose to the level of an adverse impact: para. 24. And second, Mr. Ryder said he went to the café on January 25, after the café’s renovations and spent time there, as he had routinely done before the renovations. Mr. Ryder said he returned the next day. Therefore, the Decision found, Mr. Ryder had no reasonable prospect of proving the renovations impacted his EHS in a way that posed a barrier to him patronizing the cafe: para. 25. These were not adverse credibility findings but the Tribunal applying legal principles to the facts Mr. Ryder set out in his submissions.

[19]         Finally, I understand that Mr. Ryder felt it was his obligation under the Convention to advance his complaint for the benefit of all people with environmental sensitivities. He says the complaint should go forward as a test case. Respectfully, I cannot agree. Mr. Ryder’s complaint was not brought as a group or class complaint: Rule 12.  It was an individual complaint that was based on Mr. Ryder’s specific circumstances. The Decision concluded his complaint had no reasonable prospect of success and Mr. Ryder has not persuaded me there is any basis to reconsider the Decision.  

[20]         For these reasons, I find Mr. Ryder’s reconsideration application is based on a misunderstanding of the Decision, the legal principles it was based on, and the Tribunal’s process. These are not appropriate reasons to reconsider a decision, and I decline to do so.

[21]         I will not address Mr. Ryder’s submissions about deficiencies in Fresh Cup’s submissions or related arguments about why he says the Decision ought to be reconsidered. These related arguments include those based on information he did not provide in his response to the dismissal application, but could have, and evidence he says he could call at a hearing on the merits: Dela Merced v. Aluminum Curtain Wall System and another, 2011 BCHRT 342, para. 14. These arguments are, in essence, an attempt to reargue the dismissal application in hopes of achieving a different result. Those are not proper grounds for reconsideration. In any event, the new evidence seems to go to whether EHS is a disability under the Code and what electrical work was done on the café, neither of which were material to the findings in the Decision. Even if I did consider it appropriate to address the new evidence, it would not change the outcome of the Decision.

IV    CONCLUSION

[22]         The application to reconsider is denied. The Decision stands and the complaint remains dismissed.

Laila Said
Tribunal Member