An Ontario woman has been awarded $400,000 in damages for intimate partner violence suffered at the hands of her husband, the first award of its kind since a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling in May recognized such violence as a new civil wrong. Justice Susan Vella of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released the decision on July 22, following a nine-day trial. The judge found that the woman “suffered many physical and psychological harms” as a result of her husband’s abusive conduct over the course of their 54-year marriage. The details of the case are shocking. Justice Vella found that the husband repeatedly punched, slapped and choked his wife over the course of the marriage, struck her with a hatchet or hammer on two occasions and broke her front teeth with a glass ketchup bottle. He kept a house full of over 500 firearms ranging from handguns to machine guns. In addition to taking out a gun when he was enraged with the wife, he told her he had the “25 cent or ten cent solution for her” — a statement the wife understood to refer to the cost of making a bullet and as a threat to kill her. According to the judge, these threats caused the wife to live in constant fear. “(She) was trapped in the marriage, always trying to behave in a manner that would not trigger one of (the husband’s) bouts of rage and the ensuing violence,” the judge wrote in her ruling. The wife’s description of these events was corroborated by the testimony of all four of the couple’s children, as well as by audio and video recordings, photographs and medical records. The facts of the case are distressing, but it is the legal tool the court used to address the husband’s behaviour that is most notable. The judge’s award is grounded in the tort of intimate partner violence , a cause of action the Supreme Court of Canada created only in May, when it released its decision in the case of Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia. A tort is a civil wrong. It allows a person who has been harmed to sue the wrongdoer for monetary damages, separate and apart from any criminal charge. In this case, it applies on top of any ordinary division of property or payment of support in a divorce . The road to the Supreme Court’s decision in Ahluwalia was long. In 2022, a trial judge first recognized a tort of “family violence” and awarded damages of $150,000, reasoning that existing torts, such as assault and battery, failed to fully capture the cumulative harm of a pattern of coercion and control. The next year, the Court of Appeal for Ontario rejected the new tort, holding that existing torts, when properly applied, were adequate. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling and recognized a new tort, this time called intimate partner violence. The distinguishing feature of the new tort is coercive control, which is a pattern of domination that causes distinct harm by stripping an intimate partner of their dignity, autonomy and equality within the relationship. Hallmarks include financial control, isolation, intimidation and threats. While assault and battery focus on discrete incidents, the new tort is designed to capture the entirety of an abusive relationship and the pattern of behaviour, and its impact, over the course of the relationship. Following the Supreme Court’s direction, Justice Vella confirmed that “damages will be higher than they would otherwise be assessed under the overlapping traditional personal injury torts.” That is because the new tort compensates the distinct harm that existing torts do not capture. According to Justice Vella , “this quantum-based directive from the Supreme Court also means that there is no personal injury cap with respect to the tort of intimate partner violence.” This marks a significant departure from the traditional cap on tort damages that has existed since 1978. Home sale proceeds redirected to pay support after Ontario father ‘effectively disappeared’Family law courts address impact of intimate partner violence in divorce cases Justice Vella noted that awards for damages for pain and suffering under traditional torts in domestic violence cases prior to the release of Ahluwalia typically ranged from $100,000 to $200,000 in Ontario. At $400,000, her award is double the top end of the historic range, a signal that courts intend to treat intimate partner violence as a serious, compensable wrong. For family law , the practical consequences are significant. A spouse who has endured an abusive relationship can pursue damages in the same proceeding that resolves support and the division of property. Critics of the new tort argue that it will trigger a proliferation of claims that will inject additional acrimony, complexity and uncertainty into family law proceedings. That argument, however, overlooks the need for access to justice for true victims of intimate partner violence. As Justice Vella pointed out, money cannot ever truly restore the wife to the place she would have been but for the abusive conduct she experienced. That said, the decision serves as notice that the courts are prepared to place meaningful and substantial sanctions on a wrong the law did not recognize until very recently. Adam N. Black is a partner in the family law group at Torkin Manes LLP in Toronto. ablack@torkinmanes.com
Ontario woman awarded $400,000 over husband’s decades-long abuse in legal first
