Beyond Intimate Partners: What Ahluwalia Reveals About Coercive Control and Elder Abuse

In the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark decision in Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16, the Court established the new tort of intimate partner violence grounded in the cumulative harm of coercive control, which is a sustained pattern of conduct designed to dominate, isolate, and intimidate a partner. This is a significant step forward in Canadian tort law because it acknowledges that abuse is not always episodic, physical, or easily characterized by existing causes of action – it can be a pattern of behaviour that systematically erodes a person’s autonomy and dignity.

However, the decision also exposes a gap: coercive control is not confined to intimate partner relationships. Much like the federal government's criminal reforms under Bill C-16, Protecting Victims Act, which restricts the criminalization of coercive control to intimate partners, the tort leaves older Canadians unprotected. Older adults may experience the same harms of intimidation, isolation, financial control, and erosion of autonomy by children, informal caregivers, and others in positions of trust. Limiting this tort to intimate partners risks leaving older adults without a remedy that captures the harm they experience.

Factual Background

In Ahluwalia, Ms. Kuldeep Ahluwalia had experienced sustained abusive conduct in her 16-year marriage with Amit Ahluwalia, including physical assault, humiliation, financial control, and isolation. At trial, Justice Renu Mandhane, found that Amit had used coercive and controlling conduct to ensure Kuldeep remained subservient and obedient. Justice Mandhane established a new tort of “family violence,” concluding that without the new tort, she would not have awarded the same amount of damages under the torts of assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Amit appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, conceding liability under existing torts. The Court of Appeal overturned the trial judge’s decision, finding that assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress were flexible enough to address the harms suffered by Kuldeep and reduced the damages accordingly. Kuldeep appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court of Canada’s Decision

The Supreme Court partially agreed with the trial judge and overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision. The Court found existing torts are often episodic in nature and fail to capture the cumulative pattern of conduct that characterizes intimate partner violence, which violates the victim’s autonomy, dignity, and equality in ways no single cause of action can adequately address.

The Court set out a three-part test to establish liability for intimate partner violence:

1. the abusive conduct must have occurred during or after an intimate partner relationship,
2. the defendant must have intentionally engaged in the conduct, and
3. the conduct constitutes coercive control.

This decision is both a breakthrough and a limitation. It confirms that coercive control constitutes a serious legal harm but confines the new tort exclusively to intimate partner relationships.

At trial, Justice Mandhane found that the defendant had engaged in a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. The Justice further found that existing torts did not “fully capture the cumulative harm associated with the pattern of coercion and control that lays at the heart of family violence cases, and which creates the conditions of fear and helplessness.” Her response to this shortcoming in existing tort law was to create a new tort of “family violence.” The tort of “family violence” could be established if it could be proven that a family member, within the context of a family relationship, either engaged in conduct that was violent or threatening, conduct that would constitute a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, or conduct that would cause the injured party to fear for their own safety or that of others.

Writing for the majority of the Supreme Court, Justice Kasirer found that the tort of “family violence” was too broad for the specific facts of the case. He reasoned that while the tort of “family violence” would allow for claims against family members, the abuse suffered by Ms. Ahluwalia was unique precisely because it “relates to intimate partnerships, not all family relationships.” As Ms. Ahluwalia’s claims were centred on the breakdown of an intimate relationship, rather than a non-romantic family bond, the Court found it necessary to narrow the tort to fit that context. Justice Kasirer explained that the method for establishing a novel cause of action is largely settled in Canadian law. Incremental change is the general approach, however, “[w]here capturing… conduct would require a redrawing of an existing tort’s boundaries, incrementalism may instead favour recognizing a new cause of action to fill the gap in the law.” To assess whether establishing new tort is warranted, courts must determine whether the facts of a case “show a wrongful act that offends a recognized legal interest in private law,” and whether existing torts are inadequate to address the wrongful act. If these two elements are met, “a new tort must be carefully crafted to only fill the gap in the existing law.”

The Court emphasized that the broad definition for “family violence” employed by the trial judge would come at the expense of understanding how coercive control occurs within the particular dynamic between intimate partners. While Justice Kasirer acknowledged that other family relationships, such as those involving adult children and their parents, may involve dependencies with comparable vulnerabilities, he concluded that "the unique character of coercive control between intimate partners is deserving, on these facts, of recognition on its own.” In his opinion, it would be a mistake to “design a new tort that sought to cover all instances of violence among family members, going well beyond intimate partnerships.” As a result, the Court established the narrower tort of intimate partner violence and left consideration of coercive control amongst non-intimate family members for another day.

Commentary

Coercive control affects more than intimate partners

For Justice Kasirer, intimate partnerships are unique and qualitatively different from other non-intimate relationships when it comes to the dynamics and impacts of coercive control. That distinction was understandable based on the facts before the Court. Unfortunately, it leaves unresolved the reality that coercive control also arises in other relationships marked by dependency, trust, and unequal power, such as older adult parents and their adult children.

Elder abuse is not always perpetrated by an intimate partner. It is perpetrated by children, caregivers, friends, substitute decision-makers, or others in positions of trust. Ahluwalia should therefore not be understood as the final answer of common law’s response to coercive control, but as part of a broader conversation about abuse in relationships marked by dependence and trust.

The Parallel with Elder Abuse

As the NIA argued in its submission to the House of Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-16, intimate partner violence and elder abuse can share core features: isolation from visitors and support networks, sustained patterns of controlling behaviour, escalation over time, power imbalances, and barriers to leaving or reporting the abuse.

In the context of elder abuse, coercive control may take the form of economic abuse, forced isolation, humiliation, and restricting access to medication or care where victims live with cognitive impairments, physical disabilities, or mental health conditions. These patterns of abuse can erode an older adult’s sense of freedom and autonomy, even where they technically retain legal rights. The harms manifest as prolonged financial exploitation, social isolation, deterioration of health, and deprivation of autonomy.

The Doctrinal Gap Remains

Applying the majority's own reasoning in Ahluwalia, while existing torts may address aspects of elder abuse, they do not capture the complete nature of coercive control in non-intimate partner contexts. A claim for assault may respond to physical abuse or a claim for financial loss may respond to misappropriated funds, neither encapsulates the cumulative pattern of abuse that erodes an older adult’s freedom and independence. Older adults may face the same doctrinal issue identified in Ahluwalia, the only difference being that the abusive relationship may not be one of intimate partnership.

Courts can identify gaps in the common law and recognize where existing causes of actions fail to capture distinct harms, while legislatures can respond by enacting targeted reforms. Although the intimate partner context has its own dynamics and evidentiary considerations, the reasoning in Ahluwalia should prompt lawmakers to consider the parallel framework needed for coercive control in non-intimate relationships of dependency, care, trust, and substitute decision-making.

Conclusion

Ahluwalia is not only important for recognizing coercive control as a distinct legal harm, but also for revealing the relationships it leaves behind. By naming coercive control as a distinct harm to autonomy, dignity, and equality, the Supreme Court has started a broader conversation about how the law responds to patterned abuse. For older adults, this conversation is critical.

If coercive control is understood as part of an offence because it deprives a person of freedom and autonomy, then the law should not ignore older adults simply because the perpetrator is not an intimate partner. The next step for the common law or the legislature must be to ensure that the protective reasoning of Ahluwalia extends to all those who experience the same pattern of harm.

About the Authors

Rizwan Khan is the legal researcher & analyst at the National Institute on Ageing (NIA), where he applies his legal and policy expertise to advance evidence-informed solutions. 

Rachel Tenn is an articling student at the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) with a background in policy and regulatory compliance.