Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia 2026 SCC 16: a new tort of intimate partner violence

In Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia , the Supreme Court of Canada took the unprecedented step of inaugurating a novel ‘tort of intimate partner violence’ targeting coercive control. 1 In giving benediction to this new nominate tort, the judgment charts a creative path for the law of torts in Canada, which will be of interest to Anglo-Commonwealth scholars and jurists more broadly. This comment highlights the principal innovative aspects of the Court’s decision, while identifying some analytical issues in its reasoning and cautioning against its uncritical adoption.