SCC Recognizes the New Tort of Intimate Partner Violence: Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia

Authored by Parmida Khanchi and Mattias Shao | Hosseini and Hosseini LLP

Overview of the New Tort

The new tort of intimate partner violence recognizes that abuse within an intimate relationship may involve more than isolated incidents of physical violence. Instead, it can further include a continuing pattern of coercion and control, such as psychological abuse, financial control, isolation, and threats. 

The new tort allows courts to consider the cumulative harms caused by this pattern of behaviour rather than considering each incident of violence separately.

The Facts

The Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia case involves a couple who were married for sixteen years and had two children. They married in India in 1999 and later settled in Brampton, Ontario. Their marriage was defined as “traditional” and “along gender lines”.

The couple separated on July 2, 2016. The woman alleged that the husband had subjected her to physical, emotional and psychological abuse, coercive control and financial control throughout the marriage. She identified three specific incidents of battery and other emotional abuse but argued these incidents formed part of a broader sixteen-year pattern of abuse.

The Court’s Decision

In 2022, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that the relationship involved a larger pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. 

The Supreme Court awarded $150 000 in a novel tort then described as “family violence”, now amended to “domestic violence”, specifically, between intimate partners.

Although the initial case was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeals in 2023, the 2026 Supreme Court decision of May 2026 upheld the factual elements of the trial judge’s factors of “physical, financial, and psychological abuse”, creating a newfound “consolidated framework” to address existing blind spots in tort law, upholding the breadth of 2022’s decision.

Prior to This Ruling

Before this decision, existing torts did not fully capture the harms present in intimate partner violence. Assaults address physical abuse and threats of physical abuse—not necessarily the additional impacts on the victim. Intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) provides civil remedies for extreme conduct causing mental harm, but can be inadequate for intimate partner violence with its high threshold of proof and focus on specific incidents. Addressing incidents simply through the lenses of pre-existing torts can overlook the ongoing patterns of emotional distress, intimidation, financial control, isolation and their cumulative, pervading harms. These shortcomings of the existing torts in relation to intimate partner violence highlighted the need for a new tort that captures not only the physical and emotional abuse, but rather, the long-term, continuing impact of coercion and control in an intimate partner violence case.

What It Means for the Public

This new tort of intimate partner violence means that survivors have an additional civil remedy. They may be able to claim damages for the cumulative impact of abuse and coercive control, not simply on traditional torts that fixate upon one-off instances and overlook lasting impacts.