When it comes to crafting discipline sanctions, there is no simple formula – especially for determining the length of a suspension or the duration of restrictions. Coming up with a number is not enough; the tribunal must provide the underlying rationale. Otherwise, there is a risk that the decision will be challenged on review. This is what recently occurred in Shahnematollah-Yazde v. Registrar, Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, 2002, 2026 ONSC 4586 (CanLII), where the Divisional Court emphasized the need for tribunals to explain the rationale for any number chosen and appropriately tie the sanction to the misconduct.
In Shahnematollah-Yazde, the registrant, a motor vehicle salesperson, paid for a truck through a private sale. The truck’s owner was incapacitated, and the owner’s brother had purported to sell it to the registrant. When the truck was not delivered to the registrant, he filed papers with the government asserting ownership of the truck, naming the owner (not the brother) as the vendor, and placed a lien on it. The Tribunal held that in doing so, the registrant had not established that the brother had the legal authority to sell the truck. It found that the registrant had therefore knowingly and improperly filed papers he knew or ought to have known to be invalid. On penalty, the regulator proposed to revoke the registrant’s registration. However, at a hearing, the Tribunal concluded that the public would be protected adequately by an eight-month suspension and restrictions that would be in place for two years.
The Court was critical of the Tribunal’s failure to explain why an eight-month suspension of the registrant’s registration (and not some other period) was appropriate, and questioned why the registrant had been subjected to restrictions that were unrelated to the finding of misconduct (and in fact related to an allegation not proven). The Court found the Tribunal’s explanations of the rationale for the length of the suspension inadequate and confusing, noting that the Tribunal had both decided that the registrant needed to be sanctioned for his breach of public trust in registering the bill of sale, but also found that the registrant’s actions constituted “an isolated event under most unusual circumstances and a momentary lapse of judgment that is unlikely to reoccur.” While the Court found the sanction to be indefensible, the suspension had already been served, so no further intervention was warranted.
When discipline tribunals come up with a number, they need to show their work. In other words, there must be a clearly articulated justification for the number chosen. The key to demonstrating the appropriateness of a suspension length or the duration of restrictions is connecting it to the particular registrant, the conduct at issue, and the principles of sanctions. For example, the number could reflect the time it would take the registrant to reasonably learn from and remediate the concern. Or the number could signify the period necessary to maintain public confidence. Perhaps the number is required for there to be adequate deterrence of future similar misconduct. In most, if not all cases, the number should also be proportionate, reflecting the range of sanctions in similar matters. Where a sanction decision is adequately reasoned, it should be clear to the registrant and the public how the number was calculated and, as a result, should be less susceptible to challenge.
