06/10/2026
The Supreme Court of Canada has changed the conversation around psychological and emotional abuse in relationships after recognizing a new tort of intimate partner violence.
In a landmark 6-3 ruling, the nation’s top court concluded that existing torts do not adequately remedy the specific wrong to dignity, autonomy and equality that intimate partner violence creates.
But it’s in the court’s definition of the new tort that the judges sent their most powerful message: that abuse does not have to be physical to be serious. The court said the tort covers patterns of coercion and control, including isolation, manipulation, humiliation, surveillance, economic abuse, sexual coercion and intimidation.
By recognizing that these forms of psychological and emotional abuse deserve legal recognition, the Supreme Court has initiated a change in how the legal system understands abuse, encouraging a focus on patterns of behaviour and control throughout a relationship, rather than specific incidents.
A trial judge originally ordered the husband to pay his ex-wife $150,000 in damages for physical and psychological abuse carried out over the course of their 17-year marriage, concluding that a new family violence tort would fill a gap in the law.
However, Ontario’s Court of Appeal disagreed, ruling that the existing torts of battery, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress were flexible enough to address the abuses described by the wife.
The Supreme Court ruling declined to recognize the tort described by the trial judge, limiting the new tort's application to intimate partnerships rather than to all family relationships.
Three judges dissented, arguing that existing torts were sufficient to address the harm and warning that the new tort could create legal uncertainty for both litigants and trial courts.
Despite the minority’s misgivings, we hope the Supreme Court’s ruling will empower survivors to seek help. Clients are often surprised to learn that emotional and psychological abuse may be legally significant, but this decision suggests that the law is catching up with the reality of coercive control.
