Supreme Court rules civil damages can be awarded for intimate partner violence
· Toronto Sun
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that victims of intimate partner violence can now sue for damages .
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Friday’s ruling came in a case of an Ontario woman who was abused physically and emotionally by her husband during their 16-year marriage.
According to the facts of the case, the woman was unable to make choices in her life because of the conduct of her then-husband before they divorced.
Husband ‘coerced and controlled’ wife
The trial judge ruled that the husband’s conduct had “coerced and controlled his wife in order to break her will and condition her to obey him from the beginning of their marriage.”
She claimed $100,000 in damages and was awarded $50,000 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
However, the judge also ruled that she was entitled to $50,000 in punitive damages for the new tort — civil legal claim — of family violence.
New tort would overlap existing compensation
The former husband appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal, which concluded that a new tort of domestic violence or coercive control should not be recognized because the new damages awarded would overlap with existing compensation for assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Damages were reduced by $50,000.
The woman then appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
In the ruling, Justice Nicholas Kasirer wrote for the majority that a new tort should be recognized as the existing remedy is not flexible enough to account for the harm caused by coercive control.
“Intimate partner violence is a pernicious social ill deserving of the full attention of the law,” Kasirer wrote. “Best understood, it is not confined to conduct that inflicts physical or psychological injury, but includes all abusive conduct by which one intimate partner coerces and controls the other, thus depriving them of their autonomy.”
Civil compensation for victims who were controlled
He went on to say that not only do victims suffer from physical and psychological violence, they are also controlled by isolation, manipulation, humiliation, surveillance, economic abuse, sexual coercion and intimidation.
“The existing torts fail to remedy the specific wrong to dignity, autonomy and equality that intimate partner violence creates,” Kasirer wrote. “While certain existing torts may capture discrete incidents, or even patterns, of interference with one’s physical, psychological, or emotional integrity, they do not account for the wider and qualitatively different consequences of coercive control in intimate partnerships brought about by single acts of violence or by patterns of conduct over time.”
The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) celebrated the decision, calling it a landmark victory for those who have suffered from intimate partner violence.
“We are extremely pleased that the Supreme Court has recognized the unique harms and financial burdens faced by survivors of intimate partner violence,” Kat Owens, LEAF’s legal director, said in a statement . “The new tort of intimate partner violence says that yes, these harms are real, and yes, they merit compensation.”
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Appeal should have been dismissed, judges said in dissent
Three judges in the minority argued that the appeal should be dismissed because current remedies were enough for intimate partner violence, adding it was “unprecedented” to recognize a new civil law.
“Courts should decline to create a new tort when existing torts already fully compensate the plaintiff,” Justice Mahmud Jamal wrote in the dissent.
He said there was no basis to interfere with the original result of $100,000 in damages the woman sought, and that the case was not proper to recognize the new tort.
“Courts should recognize a new tort only when it is necessary to provide a remedy on the facts before them,” Jamal wrote. “Because the common law develops incrementally through concrete disputes, courts decline to create new torts when existing causes of action can provide full compensation.”