Below is the part of the ruling in Ahluwalia that shows just how much the Court gets it. The TL;dr version is that intimate partner violence is a distinct for of harm and should be treated differently.

“The existing torts of battery and assault are often episodic in nature and cannot capture the interference to the victim’s autonomy. The tort of battery is restricted to the protection of one’s physical autonomy, not as an interest pertaining more generally to one’s agency and freedom to make one’s own decisions within an intimate partnership. Assault is an intentional act that causes one to reasonably apprehendimminent harmful physical contact, which interferes with one’s psychological integrity and security. Imminence is a critical component of the tort of assault that, by definition, constrains it to discrete incidents causing emotional harm. The tort of assault cannot capture the many forms that intimate partner violence can take — such as manipulation, isolation, or financial abuse — which do not necessarily arouse a fear of imminent contact, and whose cumulative coercive effects over its victim only appear over time. Coercive control creates a generalized fear of future harm, which is different from imminent harm. The physical and psychological injury resulting from incidents of battery and assault remain distinct from the victim’s subordination in the relationship to which they contributed. While damages may be awarded to compensate for emotional harm arising from battery and assault, the harm is a result of specific incidents, rather than the generalized fear that characterizes the state of subordination. The existing torts of assault and battery are inadequate to compensate a victim for the distinct wrongs associated with coercive control resulting in the loss of dignity, autonomy, and equality as an intimate partner.

                    “The existing tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is constrained to emotional harm and does not encompass the deprivation of autonomy. Intentional infliction of emotional distress is where there is flagrant or outrageous conduct that is calculated to produce harm and which results in a visible and provable illness. Abuse indicative of coercive control in intimate partnerships is often recurrent and involves low‑level actions rather than flagrant or outrageous conduct. Furthermore, given the focus on psychological integrity, the tort remedies harms that are emotional and psychological in nature. To make out liability under the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, a victim of intimate partner violence must prove they suffer from a visible and provable illness that is serious and prolonged and rises above the ordinary annoyances, anxieties and fears that people living in society routinely, if sometimes reluctantly, accept. Absent proof of visible symptoms of emotional distress, a plaintiff will find themselves without remedy. This tort is ill-suited for methods of coercion that do not produce a visible and provable psychological illness. The common law of torts would be deficient if it required that the abusive deprivation of an intimate partner’s autonomy first coincide with physical or emotional harm before it becomes tortious and thus compensable. Extending the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress beyond emotional harm in order to accommodate interference with dignity, autonomy, and equality would require a fundamental realignment of its elements, breaking sharply with the caselaw and generating uncertainty.

                    “It is therefore appropriate to recognize a new tort of intimate partner violence. The new tort is tied to the intimate partnership and is distinct from existing torts in that it seeks to compensate the qualitatively different wrong of coercive control, and the qualitatively different harm of loss of autonomy. It is not simply an aggregate, under a broad umbrella, of wrongful conduct already remedied by various existing torts. Under the new tort of intimate partner violence recognized in the reasons in the instant case, a plaintiff must establish three elements. First, the abusive conduct arose in an intimate partnership or its aftermath. Second, the defendant intentionally engaged in that conduct. The plaintiff need only show that the defendant intended to engage in the impugned conduct, not that they subjectively intended to control their intimate partner. For guidance, the following are some types of conduct that are capable of constituting coercive control: physical and sexual violence; emotional and psychological abuse, including verbal abuse; harassment, humiliation, and denigration; financial control, stalking, and surveillance; behaviour that isolates a partner from others, or that denies a partner access to educational, employment, and recreational opportunities; litigation abuse; and threatening conduct, including threatening to harm the children or take them away, and threatening to commit suicide. Third, the conduct, on an objective measure, constitutes coercive control. The trial judge must determine whether a reasonable person, fully apprised of the relevant context of the relationship, would have perceived the defendant’s acts, considered cumulatively, as amounting to an assertion of control over the plaintiff that has the effect of depriving them of their dignity, autonomy, and equality in the relationship. Where circumstances show that the reasonable person would conclude that the abusive conduct is incompatible with the intimate partnership, the burden will be readily met. The harm associated with coercion flows from proof of the wrongful conduct. Accordingly, this new tort does not require the plaintiff to prove any consequential harm separately.

                    “Whether manifested through a single violent act, discrete acts of violence, or a pattern of abuse, the new tort fixes on coercive or controlling conduct by which one partner overpowers the will of the other. The new tort of intimate partner violence fills a gap in the common law by properly recognizing that conduct objectively resulting in domination and control of an intimate partner is a qualitatively distinct wrong from those wrongs redressable through existing torts. It is the intimate partnership context that enables the abuser to exert control over their victim.  Liability arises because coercive control constitutes an interference with an intimate partner’s autonomy; it is inherently incompatible with an intimate partnership as it renders the partnership unequal and results in dignitary harm, alongside, but distinct from, the physical or psychological harm that can be caused by abuse. The focus on coercive control further underscores that this form of abuse is tortious not merely because it arises in intimacy, but because it is a distinct wrong giving rise to a distinct harm. The new tort is designed to recognize the gap in the law and to equip judges with resources in the private law toolbox to respond to the distinctive wrong of intimate partner violence and the distinctive injury to victim’s autonomy that goes beyond the physical and psychological losses it brings in the intimate partner setting. Where the plaintiffs plead material facts that disclose coercive control, judges, with the benefit of this new tort, will be in a position to grant remedies that address the full scope of the harm suffered, rather than confining such claims to a patchwork of existing torts, that, even with aggravated damages, provide only incomplete redress.”