Case Title: K.G. v. Smith

Citation: 

Docket Number: 21S-CT-00561

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2021-12-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
I N  T H E  
Indiana Supreme Court 
Supreme Court Case No. 21S-CT-561 
K.G., by her Parent and Next Friend, Melody Ruch, 
and Melody Ruch, Individually, 
Appellants (Plaintiffs below) 
–v– 
Morgan Smith, New Augusta North Public Academy, 
and Metropolitan School District of Pike Township, 
Appellees (Defendants below). 
Argued: September 16, 2021 | Decided: December 22, 2021 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court,  
No. 49D02-1908-CT-34744 
The Honorable Timothy Oakes, Judge 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, 
No. 20A-CT-1802 
Opinion by Justice Goff 
Chief Justice Rush and Justice David concur. 
Justice Slaughter dissents with separate opinion in which Justice Massa joins. 
 
FILED
C L E R K
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
Dec 22 2021, 10:29 am
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Goff, Justice. 
Our existing common-law rules permit the recovery of damages for the 
negligent infliction of emotional distress only in three circumstances: The 
impact rule applies when the plaintiff suffered a direct physical impact 
resulting in physical injury. The modified-impact rule applies when the 
plaintiff suffered a direct physical impact and the defendant’s negligence 
resulted in the injury or death of a third party. Finally, the bystander rule 
applies when the plaintiff witnessed a relative’s death or severe injury or 
viewed the immediate aftermath of the incident. 
 This case requires us to examine the limitations imposed by these rules 
and to determine whether a narrow expansion of our common law is 
required to do justice and to meet the reasonable expectations of the 
millions of Hoosiers governed by our legal system. We conclude that it is. 
We thus hold that, when a caretaker assumes responsibility for a child, 
and when that caretaker owes a duty of care to the child’s parent or 
guardian, a claim against the caretaker for the negligent infliction of 
emotional distress may proceed when the parent or guardian later 
discovers, with irrefutable certainty, that the caretaker sexually abused 
that child and when that abuse severely impacted the parent or guardian’s 
emotional health. 
Because Ruch has satisfied the elements of this rule, and while the trial 
court issued its decision without the benefit of our new test, we hold that 
summary judgment is improper for the School on Ruch’s emotional-
distress claim. We also hold that the trial court improperly dismissed 
Ruch’s individual claim for economic damages. We therefore remand this 
case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Facts and Procedural History 
Melody Ruch gave birth to her daughter, K.G., on August 22, 2004. K.G. 
is blind, nonverbal, limited in her mobility, and unable to communicate 
reciprocally—the result of various congenital disorders, including cerebral 
palsy, quadriplegia, epilepsy, and microcephaly. To accommodate these 
disabilities, K.G. attended the New Augusta North Public Academy in 
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Pike Township, where she received instructional and special-needs 
services. These services included regular diaper changes by one of the 
School’s instructional assistants, Morgan Smith.  
At some point between October 2015 and January 2016, Smith sexually 
abused K.G. while changing her diaper. Around this time, K.G. started 
suffering from sleeplessness and night terrors and she became combative 
toward her caregivers. Ruch noticed these changes in K.G.’s demeanor but 
never learned of the sexual-abuse incident until April 2018, when Smith 
confessed to her actions. Smith eventually pled guilty to level-3 felony 
child molesting, a crime for which she received a sentence of thirteen 
years in prison, all suspended to probation. 
In August 2019, Ruch, individually and in her capacity as parent and 
next friend of K.G., sued Smith, the school, and the Metropolitan School 
District of Pike Township (collectively, the School). In her individual 
capacity, Ruch alleged that she suffered emotional distress as a result of 
the sexual abuse to K.G., ultimately compromising her ability to care for 
her daughter at home and forcing her to incur expenses for K.G.’s 
placement in a chronic-care facility. The School moved for summary 
judgment on Ruch’s individual claims, arguing that Ruch’s failure to 
satisfy either the modified-impact rule or the bystander rule precluded her 
from recovering for emotional distress. While conceding that her claim 
met neither of those rules, Ruch asked the court to fashion a “bright line 
rule” allowing her to recover damages for emotional injury under the 
“unique circumstances” of the case. App. Vol. 2, pp. 73, 76, 77. With no 
hearing, the trial court ruled for the School, dismissing all claims raised by 
Ruch in her individual capacity. 
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. K.G. by 
Next Friend Ruch v. Smith, 164 N.E.3d 829, 834 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021). On 
Ruch’s emotional-distress claim, the panel, while recognizing incremental 
change in our common law, “decline[d] to expand a tortfeasor’s liability 
for the [negligent] infliction of emotional distress beyond the traditional 
impact rule, the modified impact rule, and the bystander rule.” Id. at 832. 
The panel reversed on the issue of economic damages related to K.G.’s 
placement and long-term care, concluding that the School moved for 
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summary judgment only on Ruch’s claim for emotional damages. Id. at 
834. 
After reviewing the parties’ briefs and hearing oral argument, we now 
grant transfer, vacating the Court of Appeals decision. See Ind. Appellate 
Rule 58(A). 
Standard of Review 
This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo. G&G Oil Co. 
of Indiana, Inc. v. Continental Western Insurance Co., 165 N.E.3d 82, 86 (Ind. 
2021). We “resolve all questions and view all evidence in the light most 
favorable to the non-moving party.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). 
Summary judgment is appropriate only “if the designated evidentiary 
matter shows that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that 
the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Ind. Trial 
Rule 56(C). 
Discussion and Decision 
There’s no dispute here that Ruch’s emotional-distress claim falls 
beyond the confines of our modified-impact and bystander rules. The 
issue, as Ruch frames it, is whether we should broaden our jurisprudence 
by devising a “bright-line rule” to permit a damages claim “limited to the 
specific facts presented in this case.” Appellant’s Br. at 9. To limit 
emotional-distress claims to our existing legal framework, she contends, 
“imposes an impossible condition on [her] access to the courts and pursuit 
of a tort remedy.” Pet. to Trans. at 8. The School, of course, rejects the idea 
of expanding tortfeasor liability for the negligent infliction of emotional 
distress beyond our traditional rules. To “carve out an exception for 
parents of children who have been sexually molested,” the School insists, 
would “open the floodgates to claims” of a similar nature. Appellees’ Br. 
at 11.  
We agree with Ruch that the extraordinary circumstances here warrant 
a proper remedy. In reaching this conclusion, we begin our discussion by 
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examining the evolution of our common-law rules governing emotional-
distress claims and the policy reasons behind those rules. See Pt. I, infra. 
We then go on to explain why the circumstances here compel further, 
albeit limited, change and why our narrow rule implicates no public-
policy concerns. See Pt. II, infra. We then apply our new rule to Ruch’s 
claim, concluding that she satisfies the elements of our test. See Pt. III, 
infra. Finally, as a separate issue, we address—and ultimately reject—the 
School’s argument that Ruch failed to properly plead her claim for 
economic damages. See Pt. IV, infra. 
I. Our common-law rules governing claims for the 
negligent infliction of emotional distress reflect a 
jurisprudence of incremental change. 
Nationally, state courts have adopted a variety of tests to evaluate the 
merits of an emotional-distress claim. These tests may follow the impact 
rule, the modified-impact rule, the foreseeability rule, the zone-of-danger 
rule, or some other “bright line” rule. Ritchhart v. Indianapolis Pub. Sch., 812 
N.E.2d 189, 192 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004). 
A. The Impact Rule 
 In 1897, Indiana adopted the most restrictive of these alternatives: the 
impact rule. In Kalen v. Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad Co., the plaintiff, 
travelling in a horse-drawn buggy with her husband and infant child, 
came to a stop at the railroad tracks. 18 Ind. App. 202, 203, 47 N.E. 694, 
694–95 (1897). As they proceeded to cross the tracks, the railroad 
watchman inadvertently lowered the gate, striking the buggy, frightening 
the horse into a frantic gallop, and drawing the family down the road “at 
a great and dangerous speed.” Id. at 203, 47 N.E. at 695. Kalen sued the 
railroad company, seeking damages for “severe nervous shock” and 
“great mental pain and anxiety.” Id. at 204, 47 N.E. at 695. 
While careful to avoid suggesting that the plaintiff’s injuries were 
“imaginary or conjectural,” the Appellate Court of Indiana ultimately 
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rejected her claim. Id. at 213, 47 N.E. at 697. In so ruling, the court—upon 
surveying the “great variety and contrariety [of] views taken upon the 
subject” in other states—formally adopted the “general doctrine that 
mental suffering alone, not accompanied by any physical injury, cannot be 
the foundation for the recovery of damages.” Id. at 206, 209, 47 N.E. at 695, 
696. To permit recovery for “nervous injuries” alone opens the door to 
“opportunities for simulation very difficult to be dealt with,” the court 
explained, “and considerations of policy may well disallow any claim in 
respect of injury purely subjective.” Id. at 210, 47 N.E. at 697. But “[w]hen 
the physical frame is visibly affected,” the court added, “considerations of 
this kind are no longer paramount.” Id. What’s more, the court reasoned, 
without such a physical impact, the courts “would be given to increase of 
litigation” with “much danger of frequent injustice.” Id. at 213, 47 N.E. at 
698. 
Indiana’s impact rule, applicable to claims of both negligent and 
intentional infliction of emotional distress, stood undisturbed for well 
over a century. Little v. Williamson, 441 N.E.2d 974, 975 (Ind. Ct. App. 
1982); Shuamber v. Henderson, 579 N.E.2d 452, 454 (Ind. 1991).  
B. The Modified-Impact Rule 
In 1991, this Court decided two cases that altered the course of our 
jurisprudence. The first of these two cases, Cullison v. Medley, involved the 
intentional variation of the tort. 570 N.E.2d 27, 30 (Ind. 1991). In disposing 
of the impact rule to permit recovery for emotional distress “sustained in 
the course of a tortious trespass,” the Court “conclude[d] that the rationale 
for this rule, whatever its historical foundation, is no longer valid.” Id. 
“The mere fact of a physical injury, however minor,” the Court reasoned, 
“does not make mental distress damages any less speculative, subject to 
exaggeration, or likely to lead to fictitious claims.” Id. Finding a jury no 
less “qualified to judge someone’s emotional injury” than “to judge 
someone’s pain and suffering or future pain and suffering,” the Court 
concluded, “and the presence or absence of some physical injury does 
nothing to alleviate the jury’s burden in deciding whether the elements of 
mental suffering are present.” Id. 
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Less than six months later, this Court found “no reason under [the] 
appropriate circumstances to refrain from extending” the rule in Cullison 
to cases “where the distress is the result of a physical injury negligently 
inflicted on another.” Shuamber, 579 N.E.2d at 455. Shuamber involved a 
mother and daughter who suffered physical injuries from a car accident in 
which an immediate relative died. Id. at 453. The survivors sued, seeking 
to recover for their mental anguish, not based on emotional trauma 
resulting from their own physical injuries, but, rather, “as a result of 
observing a member of their immediate family sustain mortal injuries in 
an automobile collision.” Id. The defendant moved for partial summary 
judgment on grounds that, under the factual circumstances there, Indiana 
recognized no right of recovery for the negligent infliction of emotional 
distress. Id. The trial court agreed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. 
at 453–54. 
In reversing summary judgment, this Court deemed the traditional 
policy concerns behind the impact rule—avoiding excessive litigation, 
preventing fraudulent claims, and ensuring causality—as “no longer 
valid” in claims involving the negligent infliction of emotional distress. Id. 
at 455. Under the Court’s new modified-impact rule, a plaintiff may 
recover damages when he or she, having suffered no physical injury, 
“sustains a direct impact by the negligence of another and,” because “of 
that direct involvement sustains an emotional trauma” serious enough to 
affect a “reasonable person.” Id. at 456. The modified rule still requires 
“direct physical impact,” we clarified in a subsequent opinion, but “the 
impact need not cause a physical injury to the plaintiff and the emotional 
trauma suffered by the plaintiff need not result from a physical injury 
caused by the impact.” Conder v. Wood, 716 N.E.2d 432, 434 (Ind. 1999). 
C. The Bystander Rule 
Almost a decade after our decision in Shuamber, this Court expanded 
the modified-impact rule by permitting, under certain circumstances, a 
bystander to recover for emotional trauma even in the absence of direct 
impact. In Groves v. Taylor, an eight-year-old girl witnessed her younger 
brother’s body roll off the highway after the defendant’s vehicle had 
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struck the boy. 729 N.E.2d 569, 571 (Ind. 2000). In her wrongful-death 
claim, the girl, along with her parents as next friends, alleged emotional 
distress from having witnessed the accident. Id. Defendants argued that 
Shuamber precluded the plaintiff’s claim because she suffered no “direct 
physical impact as a result of the accident involving her brother.” Id. The 
trial court agreed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. 
On transfer, we acknowledged that the plaintiff suffered no direct 
impact, as Shuamber required, to recover as a bystander for emotional 
distress. Id. at 572. But given the rationale for the modified-impact rule is 
to prevent spurious claims, we reasoned, “logic dictates that there may 
well be circumstances” in which the plaintiff, while having sustained no 
direct impact, “is sufficiently directly involved” in the traumatizing event 
to raise a legitimate claim. Id. We went on to identify an alternate basis, 
consisting of three factors, for distinguishing a legitimate claim of 
emotional distress from a spurious one: (1) serious injury or death to the 
victim; (2) a close familial relationship between the victim and the 
plaintiff; and (3) direct observation of the incident, or its immediate 
“gruesome aftermath,” rather than learning of it by indirect means. Id. at 
572–73 (citing Bowen v. Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co., 517 N.W.2d 432, 444–45 
(Wis. 1994)). Based on these factors, we held, a bystander may show 
“direct involvement” in a traumatizing incident by proving that he or she 
“actually witnessed or came on the scene soon after the death or severe 
injury” to “a loved one with a relationship to the plaintiff analogous to a 
spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling caused by the 
defendant’s negligent or otherwise tort[i]ous conduct.” Id. at 573. 
In Smith v. Toney, this Court, responding to a federal certified question, 
considered whether the proximity requirement under Groves was “a 
matter of time alone or also of circumstances.”1 862 N.E.2d 656, 658, 662 
(Ind. 2007). In Toney, the plaintiff’s fiancée died after colliding with the 
defendant’s vehicle. Id. at 658. The plaintiff, unable to reach her fiancée, 
 
1 The Court also considered whether, under Groves, a fiancée qualified as a relationship 
analogous to a spouse. 862 N.E.2d at 660. The Court held that it did not. Id.  
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unwittingly passed the scene of the accident while driving and observed 
the wreckage less than ten minutes after the emergency-response team 
had left with the fiancée’s body. Id. The plaintiff, who neither stopped at 
the scene nor recalled seeing the body, learned of the death about an hour 
later when she learned of it indirectly from her fiancée’s family. Id.  
In its analysis, the Toney Court focused its discussion on Bowen, a 
Wisconsin decision from which the Groves bystander rule emerged. Bowen, 
the Toney Court observed, permitted “recovery only by claimants who 
witnessed the accident or experienced the ‘gruesome aftermath’ of the 
accident ‘minutes’ after the accident occurred.” Id. at 662 (quoting Bowen, 
517 N.W.2d at 445). This proximity requirement, the Toney Court 
ultimately held, is both “temporal” and “circumstantial.” Id. at 663. The 
temporal element requires the plaintiff to have witnessed the injury “at or 
immediately following the incident.” Id. The circumstantial element 
applies if the plaintiff arrives immediately after the incident, in which case 
the scene “must be essentially as it was at the time of the incident, the 
victim must be in essentially the same condition,” and the plaintiff “must 
not have been informed of the incident before coming upon the scene.” Id. 
Because any person may learn of a traumatic event indirectly, the Court 
explained, the proximity requirement places reasonable limits on a 
defendant’s liability and ensures that claims are genuine. Id. 
We applied the proximity requirement in Clifton v. McCammack. In that 
case, a father, after viewing a news story about a nearby fatal car crash, 
drove to the scene of the accident, fearing his son was involved. 43 N.E.3d 
213, 215 (Ind. 2015). By the time the father had arrived, the unsuccessful 
resuscitation efforts had ended, and emergency responders had removed 
and covered the son’s body, obscuring any signs of physical injury. Id. 
“Given these undisputed facts,” we held that the father, “despite his 
undoubtedly genuine grief and shock,” could not, as a matter of law, 
recover for his emotional-distress claim under Indiana’s bystander rule 
“because none of the three circumstantial factors were met.” Id. This rule, 
we reasoned, “strikes the appropriate balance between allowing authentic 
claims to proceed” while limiting “open-ended liability, fraudulent claims, 
and the ubiquity of this type of injury.” Id. at 220. While acknowledging 
that this Court has, over the years, “expanded the class of persons who 
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may seek emotional distress recovery,” we ultimately decided that “any 
further expansion would be too likely to raise the amalgam of policy 
problems we seek to avoid.” Id.  
II. In some cases of child sexual abuse, a parent or 
guardian need not show proximity to the tortious 
act to raise an emotional-distress claim. 
Each of the cases discussed above share a common factual trait: the 
commission of a violent tort in open view, directly observable by the 
plaintiff (whether the victim or the bystander) either when it occurs or 
soon after.  
By contrast, the type of injury inflicted here—the sexual molestation of 
a child—typically occurs under a shroud of secrecy. See Steward v. State, 
652 N.E.2d 490, 492 (Ind. 1995). And because the injury often remains 
hidden through “affirmative acts of concealment,” Sloan v. State, 947 
N.E.2d 917, 921 (Ind. 2011), rarely—if ever—will a bystander witness the 
harm or stumble upon its “gruesome aftermath.” Still, this lack of 
proximity to the tortious act in no way reduces a parent or guardian’s 
shock of learning of the traumatic event. To the contrary, most everyone 
would agree that the “emotional trauma” experienced by a parent or 
guardian upon discovering that abuse—even indirectly—is so 
“compelling as to warrant compensation.” See Groves, 729 N.E.2d at 573. 
Considering the “extraordinary circumstances surrounding the 
plaintiff’s discovery of the injury,” Bowen, 517 N.W.2d at 445, and 
considering the remedial limitations imposed by our existing legal 
framework, justice compels us to fashion a rule permitting a claim for 
damages limited to circumstances like those presented here. Under that 
rule, when a caretaker assumes responsibility for a child, and when that 
caretaker owes a duty of care to the child’s parent or guardian, a claim 
against the caretaker for the negligent infliction of emotional distress may 
proceed when the parent or guardian later discovers, with irrefutable 
certainty, that the caretaker sexually abused that child and when that 
abuse severely impacted the parent or guardian’s emotional health.  
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A. Our narrow rule includes sufficient protections against 
spurious claims and open-ended liability. 
Sometimes, a “court may decide, as a matter of law, that considerations 
of public policy require dismissal of the claim.” Toney, 862 N.E.2d at 659. 
(quotation marks omitted). Other times, we may come to the opposite 
conclusion. See id. Either way, public-policy considerations are “an aspect 
of legal cause,” the application of which “is a function solely of the court.” 
Id. (quotation marks omitted). 
Our carve-out exception to the bystander rule’s proximity requirement, 
we believe, includes sufficient protections against the public-policy 
concerns underlying an emotional-distress claim: spurious claims and 
open-ended liability. Of course, the “plaintiff’s proximity to the tortious 
conduct could serve to authenticate the plaintiff’s claim of emotional 
distress.” Bowen, 517 N.W.2d at 438 (emphasis added). But, under 
circumstances like those present here, we decline to impose it as a 
prerequisite to recovery for such claims. 
To begin with, our rule today either meets or exceeds the first two 
requirements identified in Groves: (1) serious injury to the victim2 and (2) a 
close familial relationship between the victim and the plaintiff. See 729 
N.E.2d at 572–73. Few would question whether the sexual abuse of a child 
 
2 Our bystander rule contemplates the degree or severity of physical injury to the victim. See 
Groves, 729 N.E.2d at 572–73 (noting that, while a “fatal injury or a physical injury that a 
reasonable person would view as serious can be expected to cause severe distress to a 
bystander,” a “[l]ess serious” harm “would not ordinarily result in severe emotional distress” 
to a person of “average sensitivity”). But we decline to require a similar balancing of harm to 
the child-victim in our rule today. The harm inflicted on the child-victim of sexual abuse is 
difficult to measure and may not become apparent for years—or even decades—following the 
offense. See Jodi Leibowitz, Criminal Statutes of Limitations: An Obstacle to the Prosecution and 
Punishment of Child Sexual Abuse, 25 Cardozo L. Rev. 907, 937 (2003) (observing that “victims 
of child sexual abuse may suppress memories of the trauma for many years”). See also Ind. 
Code §§ 35-41-4-2(a), (e) (extending the limitation period for prosecuting the crime of child 
molesting from five years after the commission of the crime to any date before the alleged 
victim’s thirty-first birthday). Therefore, to the extent that it can be quantified, the degree or 
severity of injury to the child, in our opinion, is better suited to the issue of damages than it is 
to whether an emotional-distress claim may proceed to begin with.  
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injures that child. Indeed, our statutory law reflects this normative 
consensus. See, e.g., Ind. Code § 35-42-4-3 (criminalizing child 
molestation). And by limiting the class of potential plaintiffs to parents 
and guardians, specifically those with an established and loving 
relationship with their child, our rule ensures a comparatively greater 
degree of direct involvement to help “distinguish legitimate claims from 
the mere spurious.” Cf. Groves, 729 N.E.2d at 573 (expanding the class of 
potential plaintiffs to a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, 
sibling, or other person with an “analogous” relationship).  
Second, just as we’ve limited the class of potential plaintiffs, our carve-
out rule restricts the universe of tortfeasors. A parent or guardian’s claim 
for the negligent infliction of emotional distress may proceed only against 
those with a duty of care to the child’s parent or guardian, ensuring 
protection against open-ended liability. 
Third, our test requires irrefutable certainty of the tort’s commission. 
Irrefutable certainty entails more than just a third-party revelation of the 
sexual abuse to the child’s parent or guardian; it requires an admission to 
the abuse by the caretaker to a person of authority, a finding of abuse by a 
judge, or the caretaker’s conviction for the abuse. 
Finally, the discovery of the sexual abuse must have severely impacted 
the parent or guardian’s mental health. Evidence of severe impact may 
include mental-health treatment from a medical or psychiatric 
professional, a lack of basic day-to-day functioning, or dramatic changes 
to the parent or guardian’s demeanor toward family and friends.  
As an added layer of protection against potentially specious claims, we 
consider our juries “equally qualified to judge someone’s emotional injury 
as they are to judge someone’s pain and suffering or future pain and 
suffering,” and the absence of a parent’s physical proximity to the scene of 
the incident “does nothing to alleviate the jury’s burden in deciding 
whether the elements of mental suffering are present.” See Cullison, 570 
N.E.2d at 30.  
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Taken together, these factors, we believe, form a reliable “alternate 
basis for distinguishing legitimate claims of emotional distress from the 
mere spurious.” See Groves, 729 N.E.2d at 572. 
B. Our narrow rule follows the measured growth of our 
common law and trails a path charted by other states.  
Because our rules governing claims for the negligent infliction of 
emotional distress have evolved from the common law, we consider it 
“fully within this Court’s authority and responsibility to alter the rule[s]” 
when circumstances so require. Shuamber, 579 N.E.2d at 456. Indeed, the 
common law “should not be considered fixed or static, but should be 
molded and extended to meet changing conditions and needs of the 
public it was created to benefit.” Gunderson v. State, Indiana Dep’t of Nat. 
Res., 90 N.E.3d 1171, 1188 (Ind. 2018) (internal citation and quotation 
marks omitted).  
This is a process of incremental change, as our discussion above 
illustrates. In some cases, we’ve determined “that we should not change 
or further expand our precedent.” Clifton, 43 N.E.3d at 219. But in other 
cases, the circumstances lead us to conclude that a “rule needs to be re-
examined.” Shuamber, 579 N.E.2d at 455. Our decision today follows this 
latter path. By carving out an exception to the bystander rule, we adapt 
our common law “to the conditions of the present so that the ends of 
justice may be reached.” Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. v. Meyer, 101 Ind. 
App. 420, 430, 194 N.E. 206, 210 (1935). 
Beyond our common-law authority to modify a rule, we may look to 
“whether the rule has been accepted, acted on, and acquiesced in by other 
courts.” See Bryan A. Garner et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent 406 
(2016). See, e.g., Kalen, 18 Ind. App. at 206, 47 N.E. at 695 (looking to other 
jurisdictions in adopting the impact rule); Shuamber, 579 N.E.2d at 455 n.1. 
(applying the same method in modifying the impact rule); Groves, 729 
N.E.2d at 572 (drawing on Wisconsin precedent in adopting the bystander 
rule).  
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Indiana isn’t the first state to eliminate the proximity requirement in 
emotional-distress claims involving the sexual abuse of a child.  
In Croft by Croft v. Wicker, the Supreme Court of Alaska held that the 
parents of a fourteen-year-old girl raised a valid emotional-distress claim 
where the defendant sexually molested their daughter near their home, 
though not within their view, and they witnessed her severe distress soon 
after the incident. 737 P.2d 789, 790, 792 (Alaska 1987). While the plaintiffs 
in that case would arguably satisfy the temporal element of our bystander 
rule’s proximity requirement, the Wicker Court acknowledged that the 
need for “sensory and contemporaneous observance” of the incident “is 
not a rigid requirement.” Id. at 791 (internal citation and quotation marks 
omitted). 
In Bishop v. Callais, the plaintiffs sought damages for emotional distress 
after their minor son endured sexual abuse “while confined at defendants’ 
facility” for psychiatric treatment. 533 So. 2d 121, 121 (La. Ct. App. 1988). 
Finding it “reasonable to conclude that a duty to the parents may exist,” 
the court permitted their claim to proceed. Id. at 123. 
Finally, in Doe Parents No. 1 v. Department of Education, the Supreme 
Court of Hawai‘i held that, where a school had negligently permitted one 
of its teachers to molest several grade-school girls, the parents—despite 
never having witnessed the abuse—could recover for their emotional 
harm. 58 P.3d 545, 579 (Haw. 2002), as amended (Dec. 5, 2002). A plaintiff 
may recover on such a claim, the court reasoned, “absent any physical 
manifestation . . . or actual physical presence within a zone of danger 
where a reasonable person, normally constituted, would be unable to 
adequately cope with the mental stress engendered by the circumstances 
of the case.” Id. at 580 (cleaned up). 
To be sure, the tide of precedent tends to flow in the opposite direction. 
See, e.g., Nancy P. v. D’Amato, 517 N.E.2d 824, 826 (Mass. 1988) (denying 
recovery for mother’s emotional-distress claim because she “did not learn 
of the harm inflicted on her daughter until many months after the last 
incident of sexual abuse”). But at least one decision recognizes a potential 
exception to the general rule under certain circumstances. In Maguire v. 
State, the Supreme Court of Montana rejected the plaintiff’s emotional-
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distress claim after her severely autistic daughter had been assaulted and 
raped, outside of the mother’s presence, by an employee of a treatment 
center. 835 P.2d 755, 757, 762 (Mont. 1992). While recognizing that 
damages may be “recoverable when the defendant owes a duty of care to 
the plaintiff,” the court concluded that the treatment center had “not 
assume[d] a duty towards” the mother. Id. at 762. 
At the end of the day, we acknowledge that most states have refrained 
from disposing of a proximity requirement. See generally D. Gilsinger, 
Immediacy of Observation of Injury as Affecting Right to Recover Damages for 
Shock or Mental Anguish from Witnessing Injury to Another, 99 A.L.R.5th 301 
(2002) (collecting cases). But, while Indiana often assumes a “cautiously 
progressive” approach to its law, “more than once the state has taken a 
road less traveled.” David J. Bodenhamer & Randall T. Shepard, The 
Narratives and Counternarratives of Indiana Legal History, 101 Ind. Mag. Hist. 
348, 349, 350 (2005). 
III. Because Ruch satisfied the elements of our new 
rule, summary judgment is improper. 
To reiterate our new rule, when a caretaker assumes responsibility for a 
child, and when that caretaker owes a duty of care to the child’s parent or 
guardian, a claim against the caretaker for the negligent infliction of 
emotional distress may proceed when the parent or guardian later 
discovers, with irrefutable certainty, that the caretaker sexually abused 
that child and when that abuse severely impacted the parent or guardian’s 
emotional health. To satisfy this rule, the parent or guardian must show 
(A) that the tortfeasor had a duty of care to the parent or guardian; (B) that 
there is irrefutable certainty of the act’s commission; (C) that the tortious 
act is one rarely, if ever, witnessed by the parent or guardian; and (D) that 
the abuse severely impacted the parent or guardian’s emotional health.  
Ruch’s claim satisfies all four of these requirements.  
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 16 of 21 
A. The School owed a duty of care to Ruch. 
“When determining a duty’s existence for the first time,” we often 
apply the three-part test in Webb v. Jarvis. Doe #1 v. Indiana Dep’t of Child 
Servs., 81 N.E.3d 199, 206–07 (Ind. 2017) (citing 575 N.E.2d 992 (Ind. 1991)). 
This test balances (1) the parties’ relationship, (2) the foreseeability of 
harm, and (3) public policy. Id.  
Here, the School owed a duty to Ruch as K.G.’s parent.  
First, this duty arises from the custodial relationship that a school 
assumes when a parent, by state mandate, relinquishes control of their 
child. See I.C. § 20-33-2-28 (requiring, with certain exceptions, a parent to 
“send the parent’s child to a public school for the full term”). See generally 
I.C. § 20-25-8-2 (requiring all IPS schools to “develop a written compact 
among” itself, the student, the student’s teachers, and the student’s 
parents outlining the “expectations” for all). This relationship carries 
significant weight when it comes to ensuring the student’s health and 
safety. See, e.g., I.C. § 20-34-4-3 (imposing on school a duty to notify 
parents of state immunization requirements); I.C. § 20-34-8-6 (requiring 
schools to inform the parents of student-athletes of the risk of cardiac 
arrest); I.C. §§ 20-34-7-2, -3 (requiring schools to inform “parents of 
student athletes of the nature and risk of concussion and head injury”); 
I.C. § 20-34-5-16 (permitting a school nurse to assist in carrying out an 
“individualized health plan” for students with diabetes “only if the parent 
or legal guardian” agrees). 
Second, the harm here was foreseeable. When it comes to foreseeability, 
“we examine what forces and human conduct should have appeared 
likely to come on the scene, and we weigh the dangers likely to flow from 
the challenged conduct in light of these forces and conduct.” Kramer v. 
Cath. Charities of Diocese of Fort Wayne-S. Bend, Inc., 32 N.E.3d 227, 234 (Ind. 
2015) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). “Foreseeability does 
not mean that the exact hazard or precise consequence should have been 
foreseen, but it also does not encompass anything that might occur.” Id. 
(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Here, as the primary 
caregiver responsible for changing K.G.’s diaper, Smith was regularly 
exposed to K.G.’s genitalia. And because Smith carried out this 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 17 of 21 
responsibility in private and with no supervision, the risk of improper 
touching was certainly there. See I.C. § 20-26-5-10 (requiring schools to 
“adopt a policy concerning criminal history information for” persons 
“likely to have direct, ongoing contact with children within the scope of 
the[ir] employment”). 
Finally, public-policy considerations weigh heavily in favor of 
imposing a duty. Beyond the statutory requirements cited above, our 
Indiana Code, for example, requires schools to conduct an “expanded 
criminal history check” for their teachers; subjects a caregiver to a level-5 
felony offense when his or her neglect “results in bodily injury” to a 
dependent; requires a person convicted of child molesting to register as a 
sex offender; and prohibits dissemination of pornographic material to 
minors. See I.C. § 20-28-5-22.1; I.C. § 35-46-1-4; I.C. § 35-42-4-11; I.C. § 35-
49-3-3. Based on these (and other) codified social norms, a parent should 
expect their child to be safe from sexual assault when placed in the care of 
school officials. 
In short, we conclude that—based on the parties’ relationship, the 
foreseeability of sexual molestation, and public-policy considerations—the 
School owed a duty of care to Ruch. See Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar & 
Grill, Inc., 62 N.E.3d 384, 386–87 (Ind. 2016) (the existence of a duty is a 
question of law for the courts).  Whether the School breached that duty is 
a question for the trier of fact. See Rogers v. Martin, 63 N.E.3d 316, 327 (Ind. 
2016).  
B. There’s irrefutable certainty that the abuse occurred. 
Smith, K.G.’s primary caregiver, confessed to the sexual molestation to 
authorities and later pleaded guilty to level-3 felony child molesting. This 
evidence is enough to show that the abuse occurred with irrefutable 
certainty. See Cox v. Paul, 828 N.E.2d 907, 911–12 (Ind. 2005) (“The 
question of the breach of a duty is usually one for the trier of fact,” but “if 
any reasonable jury would conclude that a specific standard of care was or 
was not breached, the question of breach becomes a question of law for 
the court.”). 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 18 of 21 
C. Smith’s sexual abuse of K.G. was hidden from Ruch.  
As noted above, the sexual molestation of a child almost always takes 
place under a shroud of secrecy. See Steward, 652 N.E.2d at 492. And 
because the injury often remains hidden through “affirmative acts of 
concealment,” Sloan, 947 N.E.2d at 921, rarely—if ever—will a bystander 
witness the act or stumble upon it soon after.  
This case is no exception. Responsible for changing K.G.’s diapers at 
school, and while beyond the supervision of Ruch and others, Smith 
seized the opportunity to exploit her role as primary caretaker. Smith then 
concealed the sexual molestation for two years. Indeed, because K.G. was 
unable to communicate the injury to her mother, Ruch would never have 
learned of the incident had Smith never confessed.  
Because this evidence, viewed most favorably to Ruch as the 
nonmoving party, demonstrates that Smith’s sexual abuse of K.G. was 
hidden from Ruch, it is enough to survive summary judgment. 
D. Ruch’s discovery of the sexual abuse severely impacted 
her mental health.  
Finally, Ruch testified to having suffered emotional distress from 
knowing that K.G.—especially with her physical and mental disabilities—
had been sexually abused. App. Vol. 2, p. 37. Following periods of erratic 
behavior from K.G., including sleeplessness and combativeness toward 
her caregivers at school, Ruch, upon learning of the molestation, sought 
out counseling because she “was not really functioning as [her] normal 
self.” Id. at 64. Cf. Atl. Coast Airlines v. Cook, 857 N.E.2d 989, 999 (Ind. 2006) 
(plaintiff acknowledging “that neither he nor his spouse have sought 
medical or mental health treatment for their mental or emotional 
distress”). She became angry and would lash out at her children and 
husband. And even after completing her counseling, Ruch testified, she 
still struggled to control these emotions. 
Because this evidence, taken in the light most favorable to Ruch as the 
nonmoving party, sufficiently demonstrates that the sexual abuse severely 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 19 of 21 
impacted Ruch’s emotional health, it is enough to survive summary 
judgment. 
IV. The trial court improperly dismissed Ruch’s 
individual claim for economic damages.  
We must also resolve Ruch’s claim for economic damages.  
The School argues that Ruch failed to properly plead her “derivative” 
claim for economic damages. Resp. to Trans. at 9. Citing Howard County 
Board of Commissioners v. Lukowiak, the School insists that such claims must 
“be separately spelled out and sufficient to put the defendant on notice.” 
Id. See 813 N.E.2d 391, 393 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004). Beyond lack of sufficient 
notice, the School contends that, because Ruch never objected to the 
School’s summary-judgment motion (or its proposed order), which 
addressed “all claims” she raised individually, Ruch ultimately waived 
her claim on this issue. Resp. to Trans. at 10. 
In response, Ruch argues that she properly pled her claim for economic 
damages because she specifically claimed those damages in her complaint. 
Appellant’s Reply Br. at 5, 12 (citing App. Vol. 2, p. 17). And by 
designating herself as a plaintiff in an individual capacity (as well as in 
her capacity as K.G.’s parent and next friend), her complaint, she asserts, 
substantially complied with Indiana’s notice requirements. Id. at 11–12. 
What’s more, Ruch submits, under our summary-judgment standard, the 
School, as movant, carried the burden of showing the absence of a genuine 
fact-issue related to her economic-damages claim. Id. at 14. The School’s 
failure to make this showing, she contends, relieved her, as the non-
movant, of designating contrary evidence for her claim to survive. Id.  
We agree with Ruch. 
To begin with, the issue here centers on the adequacy of Ruch’s 
complaint, not the sufficiency of a tort-claim notice, as in Lukowiak. See 813 
N.E.2d at 393 (holding that plaintiff’s tort-claim notice to county was 
inadequate to permit personal-injury damages in excess of claimed 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 20 of 21 
medical expenses).3 The latter requires “a short and plain statement [of] 
the facts on which the claim is based,” along with “the circumstances 
which brought about the loss, the extent of the loss,” and “the amount of 
the damages sought,” among other things. See I.C. § 34-13-3-10. A 
complaint, by contrast, must include only “a short and plain statement of 
the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Ind. Trial Rule 8.  
Here, Ruch’s complaint for damages alleged that “[s]he has incurred 
expenses for the placement of [K.G.] in a chronic care facility.” App. Vol. 
2, p. 17. This statement is sufficiently distinguishable from Ruch’s 
allegation that she “has suffered emotional distress as a result of the 
sexual abuse of her daughter, and lost the ability to care for her daughter 
in her home.” See id. In short, the “operative facts” of her complaint for 
economic damages sufficiently “compl[y] with the requirements of notice 
pleading under Indiana Trial Rule 8.” See Eads v. Cmty. Hosp., 932 N.E.2d 
1239, 1246 (Ind. 2010).  
Second, the School’s summary-judgment motion and proposed order 
addressed only Ruch’s emotional-distress claim, not her claim for 
economic damages. See App. Vol. 2, pp. 8, 22–23. While both the motion 
and the order referred to “all claims,” the School made no effort, as our 
summary-judgment standard requires, to show the absence of a genuine 
fact-issue related to her economic-damages claim. See Gaff v. Indiana-
Purdue Univ. of Fort Wayne, 51 N.E.3d 1163, 1167 (Ind. 2016) (emphasizing 
that it’s the movant’s “burden to affirmatively negate the plaintiff’s claim” 
and “not the plaintiff’s burden to make a prima facie case”). 
For these reasons, the trial court improperly dismissed Ruch’s 
individual claim for economic damages. 
 
3 Even if Lukowiak were applicable, this Court has since disapproved of it in holding that, 
absent a requirement to the contrary under the Indiana Tort Claims Act, the plaintiff need not 
have listed or described her injuries in her notice to properly raise a personal-injury claim. 
City of Indianapolis v. Buschman, 988 N.E.2d 791, 795 (Ind. 2013). 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 21 of 21 
Conclusion 
Because Ruch has satisfied the elements of our new carve-out exception 
to the bystander rule, and while the trial court issued its decision without 
the benefit of our new test, we hold that summary judgment is improper 
for the School on Ruch’s emotional-distress claim. We also hold that, 
because the School’s summary-judgment motion addressed only Ruch’s 
emotional-distress claim, the trial court improperly dismissed Ruch’s 
individual claim for economic damages. As a result, we remand this case 
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Rush, C.J., and David, J., concur. 
Slaughter, J., dissents with separate opinion in which Massa, J., joins. 
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL LA N T S 
James H. Young 
Young & Young  
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Amina Anne Thomas 
Cohen & Malad, LLP 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
A TT O R N E Y F O R  A PP E LLE E S 
Caren L. Pollack 
Pollack Law Firm, P.C. 
Carmel, Indiana 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 1 of 2 
Slaughter, J., dissenting. 
This heart-rending case illustrates the adage that hard cases make bad 
law. A mother entrusted her profoundly disabled daughter to a local 
public school to provide instructional and special-needs services, which 
included changing the girl’s diaper. Though nearly a teenager, the girl is 
blind, mute, and quadriplegic, and she suffers from cerebral palsy, 
epilepsy, and microcephaly. Instead of caring for the girl, one of the 
school’s instructional assistants sexually abused her. The assistant 
eventually pleaded guilty to child molesting, a level-3 felony, and received 
a suspended sentence. The mother sued the assistant, the school, and the 
school district on behalf of her daughter and herself. Under prevailing 
law, the mother’s claim for her own emotional-distress damages fails, as 
the trial and appellate courts correctly held. 
Our Court, however, recognizing this hurdle, announces a new rule of 
law resurrecting the mother’s claim. Though our emotional-distress 
doctrine has evolved over the past 125 years, as the Court recounts, a core 
principle had remained unchanged throughout that time—until today. 
That principle required a claimant seeking emotional-distress damages to 
have witnessed the tortious conduct and resulting injury directly as they 
occurred or in their immediate aftermath. But this requirement of 
temporal and physical proximity is missing here. The mother did not 
observe her daughter’s sexual abuse or even learn of it until years later. 
Thus, the Court must fashion a new rule to revive her claim, but this new 
rule creates an unequal result. It permits recovery for a mother who did 
not witness her child’s sexual abuse, but denies recovery to a father, 
whose emotional distress was equally sincere, when his son died in a car 
accident. See Clifton v. McCammack, 43 N.E.3d 213 (Ind. 2015). Because 
“every person could be expected at some point to learn of the death or 
serious injury of a loved one through indirect means”, Smith v. Toney, 862 
N.E.2d 656, 663 (Ind. 2007), “[t]here must be a point at which a 
defendant’s exposure to liability for negligent infliction of emotional 
distress ends”, Clifton, 43 N.E.3d at 223.  
The Court admits this abrupt change in our law represents the minority 
view. “At the end of the day, we acknowledge that most states have 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 21S-CT-561 | December 22, 2021 
Page 2 of 2 
refrained from disposing of a proximity requirement.” Ante, at 15. See also 
id. at 14 (“To be sure, the tide of precedent tends to flow in the opposite 
direction.”). But the Court proceeds anyway, striking what it considers 
just the right balance between the competing policy goals of expanding 
our emotional-distress doctrine to “do justice” for this mother and to 
“meet the reasonable expectations of the millions of Hoosiers governed by 
our legal system”, id. at 2, while avoiding “spurious claims and open-
ended liability”, id. at 11. Only time will tell whether today’s watershed 
rule is so narrow and fact-specific that it proves to be a one-way ticket for 
this ride only—or whether, as I suspect, it is the proverbial camel’s nose 
under the tent, with the rest of the camel soon to follow. 
Even if I am wrong and the limited scope of today’s expanded rule 
holds, a further question remains: what principle justifies drawing the line 
here and not elsewhere? The Court’s desire to avoid a slippery-slope 
descent toward an “open-ended” regime of emotional-distress liability is 
commendable. But it is no more principled than others’ desire to ski on. 
The fine-tuning we announce today is more a legislative than a judicial 
function. The legislature is better suited to weigh the competing value 
judgments that suffuse today’s opinion on when claimants can recover 
inherently subjective emotional-distress damages. If the Court is right that 
today’s rule reflects “the reasonable expectations of the millions of 
Hoosiers governed by our legal system”, id. at 2, then their elected 
representatives in our legislature should be the ones to say so. 
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. 
Massa, J., joins.