The case came out of a 16-year marriage that ended in divorce proceedings in Ontario. Alongside the usual family law claims - decision-making authority for the children, child and spousal support, division of property, sale of the family home - the wife also asked the court to award her damages for the abuse she had experienced during the marriage.
The trial judge went further than awarding damages under the claims that already existed. She recognised a brand new tort of family violence. On appeal, Ontario's Court of Appeal disagreed with creating anything new, held that the existing claims of assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress were adequate, and reduced the damages. The wife took the question to the Supreme Court.
Why the existing claims were not enough
Writing for the majority, Justice Kasirer accepted that a new claim was needed. His reasoning turned on what the older claims actually capture. Assault addresses physical harm or the threat of it. Intentional infliction of emotional distress addresses serious psychological injury. Neither one squarely addresses coercive control itself - the sustained pattern that strips a person of the ability to make their own choices within the relationship.
The court described that pattern as capable of including isolation from friends and family, humiliation, monitoring and surveillance, control over money, sexual coercion, and intimidation. Treated as a series of separate incidents, much of this either falls through the cracks or gets undervalued.
What a claimant now has to prove
The majority set out three elements. The conduct has to have occurred during an intimate relationship or after it ended. The other person has to have engaged in the abusive conduct intentionally. And, looked at in its full context rather than incident by incident, the conduct has to amount to coercive control.
The decision was not unanimous. Justice Karakatsanis agreed with allowing the appeal in part but for her own reasons, while Justices Jamal, Cote and Rowe would have dismissed the appeal entirely.
Why it matters
For anyone leaving an abusive relationship, this opens a route to compensation through the civil courts that runs alongside - not instead of - the family law process and any criminal proceedings. Because the claim is new, how it plays out in practice, including what damages awards look like, will take time to settle through the lower courts.