The Supreme Court recognized a new common law tort of intimate partner violence, allowing the appeal in part. The marriage was found to involve 16 years of physical assaults, psychological abuse, isolation, and financial control; the husband conceded liability under assault, battery, and IIED and the parties settled damages at $100,000, so the only live issue was the basis for liability. Writing for the majority, Kasirer J. held that existing torts are inadequate because they target bodily and psychological integrity, not the distinct wrong of coercive control and its harm to a partner’s dignity, autonomy, and equality, which the episodic, contact or imminence based torts of battery, assault, and IIED cannot capture.
The tort requires conduct arising in an intimate partnership or its aftermath, intended by the defendant (not necessarily intended to control), that on an objective measure constitutes coercive control; harm need not be proven separately, and the tort is tailored to exclude victims’ acts of resistance and ordinary dysfunction. Karakatsanis J. concurred but would have gone broader to cover any act or threat of violence causing harm, while Côté, Rowe, and Jamal JJ. dissented on the basis that existing torts already fully compensated the plaintiff, making this the wrong case to create a new tort.
