Gammon v. Osteopathic Hospital

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · 1987 · Torts

TortsNegligent infliction of emotional distressNIEDemotional distressforeseeabilitysevere emotional distressordinarily sensitive persondirected verdict

Facts

After Gammon's father died at the Osteopathic Hospital, a funeral home employee retrieved the body from the morgue and also took two plastic bags from the same drawer, assuming both contained the decedent's personal effects. Both bags were delivered to Gammon, and when he opened the untagged bag at his father's home, he found a bloodied severed leg belonging to someone else. Gammon reacted with shock and thereafter suffered nightmares, personality changes, and deterioration in family relationships, though he sought no medical treatment and offered no medical evidence at trial. The jury later found on another count that he had suffered severe emotional distress.

Issue

Whether, on these facts, Gammon stated a tort claim for negligent infliction of severe emotional distress even though he suffered no physical injury and offered no medical evidence. More specifically, the question was whether prior barriers such as physical impact, objective manifestation, underlying tort, or special circumstances should preclude recovery.

Rule

In this and future tort actions, recovery for negligently inflicted severe emotional distress is not barred by arbitrary requirements such as physical impact, objective physical manifestation, underlying or accompanying tort, or special circumstances. Liability turns on ordinary negligence principles, especially foreseeability: a defendant is bound to foresee psychic harm only when such harm reasonably could be expected to befall an ordinarily sensitive person, not an eggshell psyche.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

At a hospital in Albany, New York, staff negligently hand Elena Ruiz a sealed box labeled as her late brother's personal belongings. When she opens it at home, she finds a blood-stained jar containing preserved tissue from an unrelated patient. Elena later develops recurring nightmares and severe anxiety that disrupt her family life, but she suffers no bodily injury and seeks no treatment.

If Elena sues the hospital for negligent infliction of severe emotional distress, which is the strongest argument for allowing her claim to reach the jury?

Explanation. The majority abandoned arbitrary barriers such as physical impact, physical manifestation, and an underlying tort for claims of negligently inflicted severe emotional distress. The controlling limitation is foreseeability: liability may exist where severe psychic harm reasonably could be expected to befall an ordinarily sensitive person. On these facts, a jury could find that such severe distress was foreseeable.