Haftlang, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 2026 ONSC 3155

CITATION: Haftlang, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 2026 ONSC 3155

COURT FILE NO.: CV-24-00722375-0000

DATE: 20260529

BETWEEN:

ZAHED HAFTLANG, MARYAM SOLEIMANI, SETAYESH HAFTLANG and NIAYESH HAFTLANG

Plaintiffs

– and –

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Defendant

Mark H. Arnold, for the Plaintiffs

HEARD: May 14, 2026

OVERVIEW

1The foundation for default judgment under rule 19.05 of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194, is the absent defendant’s deemed admission under rule 19.02 of the truth of the plaintiffs’ allegations in the statement of claim.

2In this case, Iran has admitted to having recruited Zahed Haftlang (“Mr. Haftlang”) at the age of 13 to fight as a child soldier in its war against Iraq, starting in 1981. Close to the end of that conflict, he was captured and became a prisoner of war. Upon his repatriation in 1990, Iranian officials branded him an “infidel” during his debriefing because of his criticism of the regime and subjected him to repeated incarceration and torture. Following release from detention in 1993, he married Maryam Soleimani. They soon had a daughter, Setayesh. He began to work as a mechanic on government-operated cargo ships.

3During his 2001 trip from South Korea to Vancouver aboard the Iran Mazandran, he was in constant conflict with ideologically adherent crew members, including the captain. During an altercation with the captain, he insulted the Supreme Leader. Fearing that the captain would report this incident to officials on return to Iran, he jumped overboard when the ship arrived in English Bay Harbour. He swam toward shore and survived, with help from a recreational kayaker. He is now a Canadian citizen and resident of Vancouver, as are his co-plaintiffs: his wife Maryam, daughter Setayesh, and son Niayesh. Mr. Haftlang still works as a mechanic. He continues to suffer from the mental shock and physical reminders from his years of exploitation, imprisonment, and torture.

4Before the court can award him and his family members damages, it must first determine whether Iran can be held liable under legislation lifting Iran’s state immunity for acts or omissions described by the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, as “terrorist activity.” By combined operation of Canada’s State Immunity Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. S-18 (“SIA”) and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, S.C. 2012, c. 1 (“JVTA”), Mr. Haftlang could pursue damages against Iran for terrorist activity, as defined in the Criminal Code. His immediate family members could then be entitled to a derivative claim for compensation under s. 61 of the Ontario Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3 (“FLA”). In concluding that the plaintiffs are all entitled to a substantial award of damages, I have considered the following two questions:

A. Were the acts committed by Iran against Mr. Haftlang “terrorist activity” under s. 83.01(1) of the Criminal Code for the purpose of lifting Iran’s sovereign immunity?

B. What is an appropriate measure of damages?

5Although Mr. Haftlang’s circumstances were unlikely to have been unique, this appears to be the first instance where a Canadian court has considered whether “terrorist activity,” as required to pierce Iran’s sovereign immunity in Canadian law, includes certain atrocities committed by the Iranian state against its own nationals on home soil. The legislation only removes sovereign immunity, if the perpetrators of the violence intended to coerce or intimidate him for a political, religious, or ideological purpose. Although a theocratic state risks having any act so characterized, the mistreatment motivated by officials’ characterization of Mr. Haftlang as an “infidel” brought their conduct into the meaning of “terrorist activity.” Once liability is established, the statutory cause of action requires damages awards in keeping with the legislative intent of deterring state terrorism.

6I will now turn to my analysis of the above questions. In concluding the plaintiffs are entitled to a civil damages award against Iran, I will consider the effect of the detention and torture after Mr. Haftlang’s release from Iraqi military prison. Only that episode in his ordeal qualified as “terrorist activity” for the purpose of the statutory tort and Iran’s loss of immunity. That said, the perpetrators of the atrocities are also subject to the principle that tortfeasors must take their victims as they find them.

A. Were the acts committed by Iran against Mr. Haftlang “terrorist activity” under [s. 83.01(1)](https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html) of the [Criminal Code](https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html) for the purpose of lifting Iran’s sovereign immunity?

7Ontario rule 19.06 provides that a plaintiff is not entitled to judgment, unless the facts support that entitlement. Had Mr. Haftlang been subject to the same mistreatment by Canadian officials, the tort liability would be obvious. Canada has waived Crown immunity domestically, pursuant to the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-50. However, to achieve that result against the government of Iran, his claim must navigate an opening in sovereign immunity through a specific legislative scheme aimed chiefly at Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. The conventional understanding of state terrorism consists of its projection of violence and support for criminal organizations beyond its borders. Does the scheme also apply to Mr. Haftlang’s experience as an Iranian national within that country’s sovereign jurisdiction?

8In 2012, in coordination with the enactment of the JVTA, S.C. 2012, c. 1, Canada’s Parliament enacted the following exception to the SIA and supported it with provisions for formal service of process for lawsuits against non-immune states:

6.1 (1) A foreign state that is set out on the list referred to in subsection (2) is not immune from the jurisdiction of a court in proceedings against it for its support of terrorism on or after January 1, 1985.

9The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country appearing on the s. 6.1 list: Order Establishing a List of Foreign States, Supporters of Terrorism, SOR/2012-170. The plaintiffs in the instant case duly followed the procedure for service of the statement of claim. As has been its custom, Iran has elected not to defend and has been noted in default.

10The JVTA’s purpose, as stated in s. 3, was “to deter terrorism by establishing a cause of action that allows victims of terrorism to sue perpetrators of terrorism and their supporters.” Subsection 4(1) further describes the cause of action in the following terms:

4 (1) Any person that has suffered loss or damage in or outside Canada on or after January 1, 1985 as a result of an act or omission that is, or had it been committed in Canada would be, punishable under Part II.1 of the Criminal Code, may, in any court of competent jurisdiction, bring an action to recover an amount equal to the loss or damage proved to have been suffered by the person and obtain any additional amount that the court may allow, from any of the following:

(a) any listed entity, or foreign state whose immunity is lifted under section 6.1 of the State Immunity Act, or other person that committed the act or omission that resulted in the loss or damage; or

(b) a foreign state whose immunity is lifted under section 6.1 of the State Immunity Act, or listed entity or other person that — for the benefit of or otherwise in relation to the listed entity referred to in paragraph (a) — committed an act or omission that is, or had it been committed in Canada would be, punishable under any of sections 83.02 to 83.04 and 83.18 to 83.23 of the Criminal Code.

11Most of the listed offences under Part II.1 of the Criminal Code refer to financial or logistical support to terrorist groups. The provision most closely relevant to Mr. Haftlang’s case appears to be s. 83.22:

Instructing to carry out terrorist activity

83.22 (1) Every person who knowingly instructs, directly or indirectly, any person to carry out a terrorist activity is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

Prosecution

(2) An offence may be committed under subsection (1) whether or not

(a) the terrorist activity is actually carried out;

(b) the accused instructs a particular person to carry out the terrorist activity;

(d) the person whom the accused instructs to carry out the terrorist activity knows that it is a terrorist activity.

12The descriptions of “terrorist activity” pursuant to s. 83.01(1)(a) refer to terrorism as known in the popular imagination, such as airline hijacking, hostage-taking, and bombings. Mr. Haftlang was not the victim of such acts. For state acts causing his ordeal to be categorized as “terrorist activity,” he must characterize them under s. 83.01(1)(b):

(b) an act or omission, in or outside Canada,

(i) that is committed

(A) in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause, and

(B) in whole or in part with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act, whether the public or the person, government or organization is inside or outside Canada, and

a. (ii) that intentionally

(A) causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence,

(B) endangers a person’s life,

(D) causes substantial property damage, whether to public or private property, if causing such damage is likely to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C), or

(E) causes serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work that is not intended to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C),

and includes a conspiracy, attempt or threat to commit any such act or omission, or being an accessory after the fact or counselling in relation to any such act or omission, but, for greater certainty, does not include an act or omission that is committed during an armed conflict and that, at the time and in the place of its commission, is in accordance with customary international law or conventional international law applicable to the conflict, or the activities undertaken by military forces of a state in the exercise of their official duties, to the extent that those activities are governed by other rules of international law.

13To come within the above description of “terrorist activity,” for the purposes of Iran’s loss of immunity from suit, it must have occurred after January 1, 1985. The portion of the cause of action pleaded as having occurred between 1981 and January 1, 1985, represented the first half of Mr. Haftlang’s service in the military as a child soldier and his years as prisoner of war. The 2012 enactments did not lift the state immunity for the purpose of capturing the effects after January 1, 1985, of terrorist activities committed before that date: Tracy v. Iran (Information and Security), 2017 ONCA 549, at para. 58. This is different from a limitations defence. Under s. 16(1)(l) of the Limitations Act, 2002, there is no limitation period for claims under the JVTA.

14On the face of the pleadings, the interval between Mr. Haftlang’s military service and his release cannot qualify as a cause of action not subject to state immunity, because the enlistment as an “act” occurred prior to the operative date and the wartime capture and imprisonment were acts of Iraq. Nor do I consider the Iranian failure to extract him or to negotiate a prisoner swap prior to the end of the war an “omission.” Although the use of child soldiers could have been a war crime under customary international law, his enlistment did not come within any definition of “terrorist activity” under consideration here. Iraq’s invasion of Iran and Iran’s defence of its borders did have a religious, political, and ideological element to it. However, Iran recruited Mr. Haftlang to fight in a war it did not initiate.

15Finally on this point, the ultimate proviso in s. 83.01(1)(b) carves out state acts during armed conflict between officially sanctioned militaries. The plaintiffs’ counsel submitted that the war crime of enlisting Mr. Haftlang as a child soldier should be added to the cause of action. The statutory scheme covered terrorism, not war crimes. This does not mean war crimes could not constitute terrorism, in certain circumstances. However, state acts that simply instil fear for purposes such as territorial expansion or illegal settlement do not constitute “terrorist activity” for the purpose of the statutory scheme, absent a political, religious or ideological purpose. Perhaps if Iran had recruited Mr. Haftlang in a paramilitary campaign to undermine Iraqi oppression of its Shia minority or to expand the Islamic revolution to Iraqi territory, such acts could be considered for qualification as “terrorist activity.” However, they were not the facts pleaded by him or admitted by Iran.

16I will therefore consider Mr. Haftlang’s mistreatment after his release from Iraqi military authorities in 1990, after the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war.

17Stripped to its essentials, as applicable to this case, s. 83.01(1)(b) consists of two parts. The first part required the act or omission to have been committed for political, religious, or ideological reasons, with the intention of intimidating the public or a segment of the public regarding its security or of compelling a person to do or refrain from doing any act. The provision tracks the extraterritoriality of the JVTA, in that the acts can occur outside Canada. The second part of the analysis is straightforward. Mr. Haftlang’s torture and imprisonment by Iranian police qualify as serious bodily harm by use of force and as endangerment of life.

18This two-part description of “terrorist activity” is wide enough to capture domestic terrorism, in the sense of acts by a domestic terrorist group against people or entities within its home borders. The acts need not take place in Canada. It does not include criminal behaviour lacking political, religious, or ideological purpose. If it includes acts by state agencies, it might not include inhumane treatment per se. I need not consider whether the line excluding such acts could be blurred, in the case of religious penal laws such as amputation for common theft. The record showed no crime under Iranian law committed by Mr. Haftlang beyond his political, ideological, or religious dissent. His mistreatment and loss of liberty arose purely from officials’ conclusion that he was an “infidel” worthy of control and isolation from Iranian society.

19The question whether his post-war mistreatment by the officials of his own country qualified as “terrorist activity” for the purpose of the JVTA requires consideration of the total context, including the larger statutory scheme, no matter how the grammatical and ordinary sense of legislation might appear on initial reading: ATCO Gas & Pipelines Ltd. v. Alberta (Energy & Utilities Board), 2006 SCC 4, [2006] 1 SCR 140, at paras. 48-49.

20Parliament’s 2012 legislation lifting Iran’s sovereign immunity was part of a coordinated withdrawal of diplomatic relations intended to isolate the Islamic Republic as a state sponsor of terrorism: Tracy, at para. 17. The legislative summary published with Bill C-10 expressed the purpose of deterring state sponsorship of terrorism and for facilitating claims by victims of such terrorism: Tracy, at para. 53. In principle, this aim could apply to numerous rogue states responsible for atrocities committed on their soil, against neighbouring populations, and beyond their borders. By delegating to Cabinet identification of countries losing their immunity, Parliament ensured the ultimate act lifting immunity lay with the executive branch of government acting within its foreign policy authority.

21To understand the removal of Iran’s state immunity, the historical analysis needs to return to times when rulers governed either by divine right conferred by a central religious authority or by the forced religious assimilation of regional populations. The principle of state sovereignty emerged to protect countries’ authority to impose official religions on those living within their borders.

22In Europe, state sovereignty and immunity emerged from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The two treaties signed under that name ended the Thirty Years’ War, a religious conflict derived from divisions within the Holy Roman Empire and resulting in the death of millions. Westphalian sovereignty recognized states’ territorial integrity, free from interference from other states and from trans-state authorities such as the Papacy, especially in the establishment of official state religions. Although it would take another 200 years for the emergence of the nation state, as we now know it, the 1648 treaties cemented the organizing principle of legal jurisdiction that one state’s laws did not apply to another, unless their sovereign representative agreed to submit to them. Westphalian sovereignty weighed heavily in the United Nations Charter, in which Article 2 recognizes members’ sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, and non-intervention in “the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”

23Contemporary international law has obviously moved on since 1648. Most notably, the world order after World War II lifted state sovereignty through the trials of war criminals. Subject to adherence to various treaties and conventions, Canada recognizes the basic state sovereignty and immunity principle as part of its obligations under customary international law: Tracy, at para. 51. For clarity, these principles operate in ss. 3 and 4 of the SIA:

3 (1) Except as provided by this Act, a foreign state is immune from the jurisdiction of any court in Canada.

(2) In any proceedings before a court, the court shall give effect to the immunity conferred on a foreign state by subsection (1) notwithstanding that the state has failed to take any step in the proceedings.

4 (1) A foreign state is not immune from the jurisdiction of a court if the state waives the immunity conferred by subsection 3(1) by submitting to the jurisdiction of the court in accordance with subsection (2) or (4).

24State sovereignty must not be confused with secularism as an international norm or custom. The Peace of Westphalia brought an end to transnational religious authority. It did not end theocracy. In some ways, the treaties encouraged churches’ domestic power in certain countries. Five centuries later, the principle of state sovereignty preserves Iran’s right to govern its population in accordance with its version of Islamic law. Thus, if the Canadian anti-terrorism legislation provided a legal remedy for Mr. Haftlang against Iran for his ordeal before becoming a refugee in Canada, the conduct of the Iranian officials must fall within the precise description of “terrorist activity” described in s. 83.01(1)(b). That Canadians might find Iran’s theocracy objectionable cannot make harm from every domestic act of that regime compensable in a suit brought in a Canadian court.

25The evidence filed by the plaintiffs, beyond that of Mr. Haftlang’s lived experience, consisted of an expert’s account of Iran’s current government, with a major emphasis on sponsorship of terrorist groups outside its borders. His historical account naturally started in 1979, when revolutionaries toppled the Shah and installed the Islamic Republic.

26At the risk of gross simplification, a non-controversial history of Iran (Persia) prior to 1979 could characterize the land it occupied as a crucible of Eurasian power and conquest. Since early conflicts with European empires, Mongol invasions, rivalry with the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire, and the Russian annexation of Transcaucasia, Iranian civilization retained Persia’s traditional borders and preserved a resilient and advanced metropolitan society. The mid-20th century glimmer of hope in modernizing its state with a constitutional monarchy was snuffed out by a U.S. and British-backed 1953 coup installing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to stem the growth of communism in Iranian politics. The Shah’s absolute monarchy lasted until the 1979 Islamic Revolution replacing the monarch with the Islamist cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That revolution, originally started as a campaign of civil resistance by many anti-autocratic groups, ended with the consolidation of the current supremacy of hard-line clerics.

27The Affidavit of Iran expert Patrick Clawson, filed in support of the motion, picked up from the rise of the Ayatollah and described current-day Iran. Dr. Clawson is the Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, with a long and distinguished career in academia and in consultancy to government and international organizations. He has assisted U.S. courts in dozens of cases involving Iran’s civil liability for state sponsorship of terrorism.

28Dr. Clawson described terror as the Islamic Republic’s cornerstone policy for driving its arch-nemesis, the United States, out of the Middle East. He cited bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, several attacks on U.S. military installations, and support for anti-Israeli groups. Iran-backed plots, assassinations, and sabotage have been active in over 35 countries. He cited a 2018 U.S State Department report estimating Iranian annual financial support for these activities approximating $1 billion.

29Dr. Clawson described how, in response to the United States’ lifting Iran’s immunity from civil suit, victims of various attacks have obtained damages recoveries exceeding $1 billion. In 2000,¹ the Iranian Parliament passed legislation permitting Iranians to sue the United States for various causes of action, including the 1953 coup. In his opinion, civil damage awards have not deterred the current regime from continued support for terrorist activities. However, Iranian officials pay close attention to civil judgments, particularly punitive damages awards and have been known to defend some lawsuits. (Iran did appoint counsel to appear in the Canadian proceedings to enforce the U.S. judgments in Tracy, at both the lower and appellate court levels.)

30Domestically, the Iranian government during the 1985-2001 period consisted of two parallel sets of institutions controlled by the Ayatollah as Supreme Leader with the aid of over 1,000 deputies intervening in every ministry, every province, every Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) brigade. The formal government, including the regular military, is led by the President but is constitutionally subordinate to the Supreme Leader and is excluded from the activities of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The revolutionary institutions are generally more powerful than the formal government. Revolutionary courts run parallel to regular courts and assert authority over prisons and police outside of the formal government.

31Between the evidence and pleadings of Mr. Haftlang and the expert evidence of Dr. Clawson, I draw the inference that those responsible for Mr. Haftlang’s detention and torture were members of the powerful revolutionary arm of the state apparatus and not officials of the secular state tasked with ordinary law and order. I also conclude that these revolutionary actors were driven by their suspicion of the returned prisoner of war because of his vocal dissent and the length of detention in the military prisons of Iraq. They branded him an “infidel” and tortured him to condition him into loyalty to the Supreme Leader.

32After his return to Iran after the end of the war, the only reasonable explanation for Mr. Haftlang’s mistreatment was to suppress any misgivings he may have harboured about his participation as an Iranian soldier. The basic facts of his case involved no reason to suspect that he had been co-opted by the Iraqi regime or that he posed any other threat to Iranian internal security. He was an ordinary person upset by the Iran to which he returned and was caught up in a paranoid regime’s cogs. The conditioned or mundane nature of the violence against him did not lessen its significance. In fact, it made it more shocking. For a regime used to projecting violence and hatred internally and abroad, the way other governments sponsor cultural festivals and student exchanges, the ruining of one man’s life was no less an act of state terror than firing an ordnance into a residential area. Terrorism can be committed by the state within its borders against its own nationals.

33The court can only conclude that the purpose, objective, or cause motivating this mistreatment was political. In the context of Iranian revolutionary state actors, political also meant religious and ideological. The intention must also have been to compel him to refrain from complaining to anyone about his role in the war. Although these activities were all internal within Iran’s revolutionary state apparatus, the objects and intentions were no different in principle from attacks on foreign soil to deter foreign opposition, among the diaspora or otherwise, to the Iranian state. His experience of torture and imprisonment without charge therefore constituted “terrorist activity” committed by agents of the Iranian regime against their own national. Iran is therefore liable to Mr. Haftlang and answerable to a civil judgment by this court for his loss caused by the acts committed against him.

B. What is an appropriate measure of damages?

34Subsection 4(1) of the JVTA confers on the court jurisdiction to award “equal to the loss or damage proved to have been suffered by the person and … any additional amount that the court may allow.” In most instances, the claims have been brought to enforce U.S. court awards or otherwise as wrongful death claims. Here, the injured victim of Iranian domestic terrorist activity endured years of torture and arbitrary detention after his release from Iraqi military prison. During half of that period, he was removed from his wife and daughter. The victim impact statements and medico-legal reports filed on the motion establish that Mr. Haftlang endured and continues to suffer from extreme mental suffering as well as the physical effects of torture.

35In Zarei v. Iran, 2021 ONSC 8569, at paras. 30-32, this court awarded $1 million in damages to the estates of the deceased passengers of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS 752, brought down by missiles launched by IRGC personnel. The rationale for awarding that amount for the brief time the victims suffered in mental anguish of imminent death while still in the air was that it has become a conventional sum in U.S. court decisions. The amount was not subject to the trilogy cap for personal injury, because it did not apply to criminal wrongdoing.

36In assessing damages, I am mindful of the fact that the cause of Mr. Haftlang’s mental suffering and post-traumatic stress disorder was a cumulative result of both actionable and non-actionable experiences – at least for the purpose of Iran’s loss of immunity. As an elementary school pupil, he immediately encountered the terror of the 1979 revolution, when he entered his classroom and found his teacher’s dead body hanging from the ceiling. Between his affidavit and the medical reports, there were some discrepancies whether he was forced into military service and to work on the government-operated cargo vessels. For the purposes of this default judgment motion, I must limit the statutory tort analysis to the “terrorist activity” after January 1, 1985. During his periods of detention between 1991 and 1993, police and guards assaulted him with beatings, objects attached to his genitals and inserted into his rectum, electric shocks and infliction of head trauma.

37While it is important not to award damages for a loss and cause of action predating the lifting of the immunity, Canadian tort law also recognizes that the tortfeasor can be liable for aggravation of a pre-existing condition: Athey v. Leonati, 1996 183 (SCC), [1996] 3 SCR 458, at para. 34. Thus, whatever harm Mr. Haftlang suffered from his enlistment into the Iranian army, work on the front lines, and from ill treatment after capture by Iraqi forces, the court can consider the cumulative damage to his psychological well-being for the post-1985 conduct. Tortfeasors must take their victims as they find them. They are liable for the plaintiff’s injuries even if pre-existing conditions render them more severe: Jenkins v. Casey, 2022 BCCA 64, at para. 75.

38Iran did not initiate the war and, under international law, was entitled to defend its borders. Even in the 1980’s, however, Iranian officials should have considered the mental and physical effects of the conflict on demobilized troops and returning prisoners of war. Instead of looking after Mr. Haftlang for having contributed to the defence of the realm, Iranian revolutionary officials feared him as a dissenter and sought to recondition him into submission to the authority of the Supreme Leader. Had the officials observed international norms for the treatment of former combatants, they ought to have looked after him. He would likely have remained in Iran. He was not a political agitator. The purpose of detaining and torturing him was purely to realign his religious and ideological thinking to submission to the revolution.

39The purpose of torture was not limited to the infliction of pain in the moment. It is intended to exercise control and to brandish the knowledge that the torturer can act with impunity, even to put an end to the victim’s life. In doing so, the Islamic Republic replaced the repressive regime of the Shah with another form of open-air prison: where the True Believer runs free to subjugate anyone else as an “infidel.” One famous victim of Iran’s regime wrote in 1990 of the visceral terror of persons living in such a place:

You see the same thing in everybody’s eyes. How do we get out of here? It becomes clear that the house is a prison. People begin to scream and pound the walls. Men arrive with guns. The house begins to shake. You do not wake up. You are already awake.²

40By enacting the JVTA as a centrepiece of a legislative package lifting that impunity, Canada has joined the chorus of nations requiring Iran to stop the use of violence and the threat of violence toward civilians as an instrument of foreign and domestic policy. To give true effect to the legislation, it cannot be equated with civil law reform initiatives such as those reversing the onus of proof for accident claims in favour of pedestrians, or for making dog bites a strict liability cause of action. By lifting the statutory immunity for one member of the community of nations, in respect of one type of intentional tort, Canada meant to craft a remedy reflecting the insult to the planet’s shared humanity and to individuals whose act of being awake brings extreme suffering. No money can adequately compensate from some wrongs, and the legislation’s purpose cannot be restrained by principles of reasonable loss-spreading. Any award must be sufficiently significant to register, even if slightly, in the terrorist regime’s home consciousness.

41The plaintiffs’ counsel submitted that the appropriate measure of damages for Mr. Haftlang is the amount of $100 million. Based on the wrongful death claims allowed by this court in the Ukraine Airline case for moments of extreme anguish, that amount does not seem inflated, for years of mistreatment aggravating a lifetime of mental trauma. I therefore award that amount.

42The claims made by Mr. Haftlang’s wife and children are compensable under s. 61(2) (e) of the Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3 (“FLA”), for “loss of guidance, care and companionship that the claimant might reasonably have expected to receive from the person if the injury or death had not occurred.” This head of damage is not intended to compensate for mental anguish and is not a form of general damages: Zarei v. Iran, 2021 ONSC 8569, at para. 22. Unlike the direct cause of action under the JVTA, the FLA claims are derivative, arise from provincial legislation, and must follow the range of damages awarded conventionally in any applicable tort claim in Ontario. See: To v. Toronto Board of Education, 2001 11304 (ON CA), at paras. 36-46.

43The victim impact statements showed that Maryam Soleimani is a victim of the psychological injuries suffered by her husband. Even now, her husband is a withdrawn man whose post-traumatic distress has made it difficult to restart life in Canada. Daughter Setayesh Haftlang was deprived of her father’s guidance, care, and companionship until reunification in Canada. Her relationship with her father is also very difficult. The high end of FLA awards may not provide much solace for their loss, but I am bound to award amounts following the range. I therefore award $100,000 to Maryam Soleimani and $50,000 to Setayesh Haftlang.

44The plaintiff Niayesh Haftlang, born after Mr. Haftlang’s arrival in Canada, is not eligible to make the claim. The cause of action under s. 61 must be founded on a family relation in existence at the time of the commission of the tort: Bonaparte v. Canada, 2003 40016 (ON CA), at paras. 40-46.

45Finally, the court stands in the unusual position of considering an award of punitive damage. Typically, punitive damages are sanctions reserved for exceptional cases. An act of state terrorism is axiomatically an exceptional case. In Zarei, the court awarded $100 million in punitive damages for the missile attack on the passenger plane. Although punitive damages entail a comparison of wrongfulness, it is hard to compare atrocities against random foreign nationals and systematic violence against a country’s own. In making the award, it is not this court’s role to render judgment on Iran. Rather, its jurisdiction is to consider the punitive, deterrent, and denunciatory purposes of the award.

46As Dr. Clawson stated in his report, no individual judgment will deter the Iranian regime from continuing its method of exerting influence – both externally and internally. However, the accumulation of damage awards, often executed against Iran’s frozen foreign assets, has some effect. Based on the rationale that one person’s cause for righting terrorist acts should ring as loudly as the cause of multiple victims, I will follow Zarei and award $100 million in punitive damages.

CONCLUSION AND COSTS

47Based on the foregoing, I award the following damages against the defendant:

a) To Zahed Haftlang, $100,000,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000,000 in punitive damages

b) To Maryam Soleimani, damages for loss of guidance, care, and companionship in the amount of $100,000

c) To Setayesh Haftlang, damages for loss of guidance, care, and companionship in the amount of $50,000

48The claim by Niayesh Haftlang is dismissed, without costs. If the remaining plaintiffs seek costs, they may deliver a bill of costs and notify my judicial assistant that it has been uploaded to Case Center. If no costs are demanded in 20 days, there shall be no costs of the proceeding.

Akazaki J.

Released: May 29, 2026