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Torts - Pleadings. Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia [no tort need be specified]
In Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia (SCC, 2026) the Supreme Court of Canada establishes of a new tort of 'Intimate Partner Violence'.
The court considers the required specificity of tort pleadings, here even affirming that specific torts need not be named (!):[59] A further point bears emphasis. Contrary to Mr. Ahluwalia’s submission before the Court of Appeal, the claim for damages grounded in the new tort was not advanced for the first time in Ms. Ahluwalia’s closing submissions “after the close of evidence” (Mr. Ahluwalia’s Reply Closing Written Submissions at Trial, dated February 28, 2022, at p. 5). At trial, Mr. Ahluwalia argued that Ms. Ahluwalia’s claim for damages under a new tort was procedurally unfair because “[n]othing in Ms. Ahluwalia’s trial evidence suggested that she was arguing a new tort of family violence or financial abuse” (ibid.) — an assertion that Mr. Ahluwalia repeated before the Court of Appeal and that was left unaddressed by the court.
[60] Mr. Ahluwalia’s “procedural unfairness” claim, which he had advanced in the Court of Appeal (at para. 31), is unsupported by the record. Ms. Ahluwalia’s initial claim for damages expressly rested in part on Mr. Ahluwalia’s “controlling nature” (Mr. Ahluwalia’s Compendium, at p. 133). The evidence that Ms. Ahluwalia had adduced at trial sought to establish Mr. Ahluwalia’s coercive control over her — a claim that she had maintained throughout the trial proceedings. The trial judge recognized that Ms. Ahluwalia’s “evidence and submissions made it clear” that she was pleading the new tort (para. 32). Both the trial judge and the Court of Appeal agreed that coercive control was factually established (trial reasons, at paras. 107 and 111; C.A. reasons, at para. 13). Mr. Ahluwalia’s closing submissions at trial also engaged directly with Ms. Ahluwalia’s claim regarding coercive control — both denying at length that he had controlled and coerced her and rejecting the need to introduce a tort for family violence (Mr. Ahluwalia’s Closing Submissions at Trial, dated February 22, 2022, at pp. 3-6). Although Ms. Ahluwalia’s claim in part rests on allegations of physical and mental abuse, characterizing it solely in those terms misconstrues the nature of the claim she advanced and the basis on which she sought redress. The material facts that Ms. Ahluwalia pleaded, properly understood, reveal coercive control as the wrongful conduct that “cr[ies] out for a remedy” (Jones, at para. 69).
[61] Furthermore, regardless of whether Ms. Ahluwalia claimed damages under existing torts or a new tort, she was “only obliged to describe to the court and to [Mr. Ahluwalia] what [he] had done to her that warranted a remedy”, not to plead in “any particular legal form” (Beswick, at p. 435). Indeed, the trial judge acknowledged that the specific torts need not be expressly named as long as the underlying factual matrix was properly pleaded (Mr. Ahluwalia’s Compendium, at p. 224). The trial judge also observed that Ms. Ahluwalia’s claim focused on a pattern of abuse throughout the marriage, rather than on specific incidents of abuse (trial reasons, at para. 32). She explained to Mr. Ahluwalia that he was free to advance the position that the alleged tortious conduct was not legally actionable; however, such submission did not relieve her of the obligation to assess Ms. Ahluwalia’s claim as pleaded (Excerpt of Proceedings at Trial, vol. IV, at pp. 385‑86). It was therefore apparent to both parties and the trial judge that Ms. Ahluwalia advanced a claim that went beyond existing torts.
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