Law Times

Page 2 June 9, 2014 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com the tribunal said. The Ministry of the Attorney General says it's reviewing the decision to see if it warrants a judicial review application. For employment lawyer Howard Levitt, the decision completely ignores the nature of fraudsters. "If you're a person who is prepared to commit fraud and not work to recover money, it's much easier to say you've got some mental stress or disability than to say you've got a broken back," he says. "They are more prone to be more fraudulent because it's easier to fake. I know that with certainty because that's what I find in my client base." Citing a 2012 WSIB inde- pendent review, Levitt says the board had already been facing $14.5 billion in unfunded liabil- ities and suggests "we can't even begin to afford" more costs. "It's outrageous," he adds. But to Jason Beeho, an oc- cupational health and safety lawyer at Rubin Thomlin- son LLP, the decision didn't come as a surprise at a time of growing awareness around mental-health issues in the workplace. "My reaction to it is not one of panic; it's not one of: 'Good heavens, now employers are going to see claims brought right, left, and centre,'" he says. While workers may be more likely to bring stress-related ap- plications as a result of the deci- sion, there's nothing to suggest their claims will be easy to win, he adds. "The upshot of this decision is that the tribunal is saying the board needs to be prepared to look at these complicated ap- plications and sort them out on the same basis they would sort out any other claim for injury. It doesn't follow that just be- cause there has been a declara- tion on these provisions that all of a sudden it will be easy to put through a claim for mental stress." So far, Beeho adds, the work has been simple for the board by simply rejecting claims for chronic mental- health injuries. "The literature establishes a relationship between acute traumatic events and mental disorders; the evidence also es- tablishes a causal relationship b etween chronic stress and mental disorder," the tribunal said in its findings. But to Levitt, it would be both costly and difficult for the board to disprove claims of chronic mental illness associated with the workplace. "How can you prove that somebody's psychiatric illness, if it's even that, wasn't caused by not being adequately supported by their boss if that's what they tell their psychiatrist?" he asks. "So somebody has a dispute with a coworker and they don't get support from their boss — sometimes for a good reason, by the way — and then they tell their psychiatrist: 'My boss didn't give me adequate sup- port.' I mean, imagine the open- ing for people who would love to not have to work." Levitt also takes issue with how the appeals tribunal has characterized non-traumatic workplace injuries. The tribunal said: "The evi- dence demonstrates that work- place stressors are not limited to ' job strain,' but rather, there are many other types of non-trau- matic workplace stressors that may be associated with mental disorders, including bullying, lack of managerial support, in- terpersonal conf licts, and hu- miliating events." Says Levitt: "Who could not claim one of those in the last year?" But William LeMay, a law- yer at Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, has yet to draw conclusions about the case and what it could mean for fu- ture decisions. "My impression of the vice- chair's decision is that she thought she had some facts that were concerning to her in this case and those won't arrive in every case," he says. Beeho, too, notes the tribu- nal's decisions aren't binding le- gal precedent and it doesn't have to arrive at the same conclusion in similar cases. "It's not as though this is hard-and-fast precedent but it certainly is instructive," he says. LeMay says the message in this case is that employers need to make sure their violence and harassment policies are "up to date, enforced, and communi- cated." And when employers receive complaints from staff, it's im- portant to take them seriously, NEWS co-o rdination among the various authorities, he says. But since the provincial government is getting more involved in immigration, "there also should be an additional consideration for them to become involved in fraud prevention," he adds. This isn't the first time Codina is facing accusations of fraud. She served nine years in a New York prison after the Manhattan State Supreme Court found her guilty of posing as an immigration lawyer 14 years ago. She was also ordered to pay $108,840 in restitution. But when it comes to facing her legal troubles, Codina has fought them vigorously along the way. Following her conviction in the legal aid case, for which she received a six-month sentence, she took the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal. After it rejected her appeal, she filed for leave at the Supreme Court of Canada, which dismissed the application. Upon her release from prison in 2009, she followed through with an appeal of her disbarment, an application previously deemed abandoned. In her plea to reschedule the appeal, Codina said if the regulator could go after lawyers acquitted by courts, it followed that it should at times find in favour of lawyers who have been convicted. "In my view, acquittals are very different than convictions," wrote hearing panel chairman Mark Sandler in 2010. On one web site on which several posters accuse her of taking their money and not doing the work she promised, a person writing under Codina's name replied with a strong denial. "Wow! It is truly unbelievable that these kinds of postings are be- ing permitted without verification of claim or identity," says the reply written last year. In a different comment, a poster under Codina's name said the various complaints were in fact coming from a dis- gruntled former employee. In response to one online complaint, a poster under her name wrote: "Here is a person who claims that his application was rejected when in fact it was approved and the proof is available. Having iden- tified himself in this manner, the matter can certainly be taken up in a court of law and not only will he be liable for libel and slander but his status in Canada may certainly be jeopardized further." According to Codina's LinkedIn page, she attended law school at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law after completing a political science and philosophy degree at McMaster University. In addition to a number of sports-related awards, her page also notes she has di- plomas in Spanish, German, and Greek. Amirpour says Codina's resume was convincing and she didn't believe a person without the proper credentials could obtain a busi- ness registration in Canada. "I don't know how she could do these things and no one stops her," she says. The Law Society of Upper Canada has "a limited role to play" in immigration fraud cases, says spokesman Roy Thomas. Although the Law Society Act prohibits unauthorized practice, "the law society has no special authority or power to investigate unauthorized practice," he says. "The authority under the act can be exercised by police and others as well. Where another agency has more specific authority to investigate, the law society may support those other investigations as the circumstances require." Much of the governing legislation regarding immigration fraud is under the jurisdiction of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Criminal Code, Thomas adds. Amirpour says she worked as Codina's Farsi consultant when she lost her job this year. That's when she found out no work had been done on her file, she says. When she contacted police and the law society, both said they had received other complaints about Codina, she notes. LT Draft your own customized documents with O'Brien's Encyclopedia of Forms, Eleventh Edition – Leases, Division IV. This service provides, both in looseleaf and electronic formats, a comprehensive collection of documents and provisions used in a commercial or residential leasing practice that can easily be adapted to suit your clients' needs. 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