The Supreme Court of Canada at sunset in Ottawa in December, 2023.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday will decide a case about family violence and whether to expand the rules under which a person can receive financial damages for harm they suffered.
It has been almost 15 months since the Ahluwalia hearing at the top court in February, 2025. That’s more than double the average time it takes to deliver such judgments. The span is among the longest in court history. The top court early Friday is holding a rare budget-style lockup before the judgment’s official release to help explain its details to journalists.
The judgment revolves around the ground rules in civil court where monetary damages can be awarded in cases of intimate-partner violence.
The Supreme Court will decide whether a person can sue a former partner in a new legal category called family violence, or if they have to instead rely on long-established grounds such as assault or battery.
Through the case, from the legal filings to the hearing, judges on the Supreme Court considered the prevalence of family violence. But they were also thinking about whether the courts are the right place to forge new legal territory, rather than through legislation.
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Kuldeep Ahluwalia, a Punjabi woman, and Amrit Ahluwalia ended up in court in Ontario in 2016 after they separated. They had met and married in 1999 in India and came to Canada in the early 2000s.
According to records filed at the Supreme Court, Mr. Ahluwalia began abusing Ms. Ahluwalia near the start of their marriage. There were three major assaults over the years. Mr. Ahluwalia at times isolated Ms. Ahluwalia from her family in India, restricted her from making friends and controlled the family finances.
They had two children. Court records indicate the general pattern of abuse saw Mr. Ahluwalia “become irrationally jealous, drink, engage in verbal arguments, and then beat Kuldeep.”
After an 11-day trial, at which Ms. Ahluwalia represented herself without a lawyer, Justice Renu Mandhane of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded her $150,000 in damages.
The more significant move was to create a new tort – a legal term for the basis to seek damages from a person for alleged harms in civil, rather than criminal, court.
When Justice Mandhane issued the Ahluwalia ruling in February, 2022, she had been on the bench for less than two years. She had previously been chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission for five years.
Justice Mandhane noted that the $150,000 in damages was “well outside the normal boundaries of family law” but emphasized that recognizing a new tort of family violence was necessary to properly contextualize the 16 years of wide-ranging abuse that included coercion and control.
“It was not just ‘unhappy’ or ‘dysfunctional’; it was violent,” wrote Justice Mandhane of the marriage.
Recognizing new torts in the courts is unusual and does not happen often.
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In 2023, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected the trial court’s decision. The judgment was unanimous, written by Mary Lou Benotto. She is an expert in family law and served as a judge for almost three decades, including 11 years on the appeal court, until 2024.
Her ruling highlighted the pervasive problem of intimate-partner violence but noted there were already “numerous and varied remedies” in the law. She concluded a new tort was unnecessary. The court reduced damages by a third to $100,000.
As the Supreme Court’s judgment is set to land, advocates in favour of a new tort of family violence say it would improve access to justice in civil courts for women who suffer intimate-partner violence by naming the specific forum of abuse and making the legal path more straightforward.
Pam Hrick, a lawyer at Lerners in Toronto, said the law as it stands isn’t well-suited to address the contemporary realities of violence within families. She hopes the Supreme Court issues clear and practical guidance to the lower courts on how to handle such cases.
“The case is an opportunity for the court to really highlight the need to have a nuanced understanding of family violence,” said Ms. Hrick, who represented an intervener, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, at the Supreme Court.
The federal government argued in favour of a new tort of family violence at the Supreme Court, citing the “specific and unique harms” caused by intimate-partner violence. B.C. also supported the new tort.
One question that loomed over the case was whether it should be the courts or politicians who expand the legal arena in new ways.
Wading into political waters was on the minds of a number of judges during the hearing last year, said Hassan Ahmad, an assistant law professor at York University and counsel for the Tort Law and Social Equality Project, an intervener in the case.
“They’re well aware of this tension, what are the limits of the law, and what are the limits of the courts,” Mr. Ahmad said. He is wary of a new tort: “I’m not convinced this is the place to take the leap.”
Neha Chugh, a lawyer and a visiting law professor at University of Ottawa, said factors such as race, culture and immigration status are key in the Ahluwalia case, which is rooted in South Asian heritage.
At the Supreme Court, she represented a coalition of South Asian legal groups. She said South Asian women who survive abuse often have suffered a pattern that is shaped by culture, such as stigma around divorce and pressure from extended family to stay together.
But if the Supreme Court sides with the Ontario Court of Appeal against the trial court judge, Ms. Chugh said she hopes it is a signal for politicians to take action.
“The momentum has started,” said Ms. Chugh. “I hope the conversation doesn’t come to an end.”