The two lawyers -- Selwyn Pieters and Brian Noble -- as well as an articling student, were approached by Ontario courthouse librarian Melissa Firth in 2008 while in the lawyers’ lounge. Despite several other lawyers being in the room, the librarian asked only the three men for their identification to verify they were qualified.
According to a report by the Law Times website, the incident escalated when Mr Pieters said Ms Firth had targeted them because they are black.
Circumstantial evidence
In December 2010, an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal found that the three men had been racially discriminated against, but a year later the Ontario Divisional Court overturned the decision, ruling that not all evidence available had been considered.
The dispute is now back in court after Mr Nobles and Mr Pieters took their case against Ms Firth and the Peel Law Association to the appeal court. According to the report, their case is largely based on circumstantial evidence, including the way the men were approached.
‘It’s the manner in which it was done,’ said Toronto lawyer Geri Sanson, who is representing Mr Pieters and Mr Noble.
'Dangerous’ reasoning
The defence argued that Ms Firth may have approached the men first simply because they were sitting closest to the door.
Respondents’ counsel Mark Freiman added: ‘The fact that people in society are discriminatory cannot be used as evidence that a particular [person] was discriminatory.’
Marvin Kurz, a lawyer for the intervener B’nai Brith Canada, called the tribunal’s reasoning ‘dangerous’. He said: ‘Human rights law has to be seen as a two-way street. There has to be a real opportunity to defend yourself. You can’t presume discrimination, you have to prove it.’
However, Mr Pieters argued ‘I understand how lawyers are treated… [Ms Firth] would not have treated a white lawyer that way.’
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