Case Title: Durham v. McDonald's Restaurants of Oklahoma, Inc.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 108193

State: oklahoma

Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Date: 2011-05-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
DURHAM v. MCDONALD'S RESTAURANTS OF OKLAHOMA, INC.2011 OK 45Case Number: 108193Decided: 05/24/2011THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
NOTICE: THIS OPINION HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED FOR PUBLICATION IN 
THE PERMANENT LAW REPORTS. UNTIL RELEASED, IT IS SUBJECT TO REVISION OR 
WITHDRAWAL. 

CAMRAN DURHAM, Plaintiff/Appellant,v.MCDONALD'S 
RESTAURANTS OF OKLAHOMA, INC., an Oklahoma Corp., Defendant/Appellee.
CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIVISION IV,ON 
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF TULSA COUNTY,STATE OF 
OKLAHOMAHONORABLE DEBORAH C. SHALLCROSS, TRIAL JUDGE
¶0 Former employee brought suit in federal court against his former employer 
alleging claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, along with state law 
claims for assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 
These claims all arose from an incident in which employer's manager allegedly 
denied employee permission to take prescription medication and allegedly called 
employee a "f...ing retard." The federal court granted a summary judgment in 
favor of employer on the ADA claims ruling, inter alia, that the conduct of 
employer's manager toward employee was "not severe." The federal court also 
declined to continue jurisdiction of the state claims. Thereafter, employee 
refiled the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress in state 
district court. On summary judgment, the district court ruled employee was 
precluded from recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress based 
on the federal court ruling that the conduct of employer's manager towards 
employee was "not severe" and, therefore, was not extreme and outrageous. The 
Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. This Court has previously granted certiorari. 
Upon review, we vacate the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, reverse the 
trial court summary judgment and remand for further proceedings. 
CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED;COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS OPINION 
VACATED;SUMMARY JUDGMENT REVERSED ANDREMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS. 

Stephen J. Modovsky, Sidney A. Martin, MODOVSKY LAW OFFICE, P.C., Tulsa, 
Oklahoma, for Plaintiff/Appellant,Matthew C. Kane, RYAN WHALEY COLDIRON 
SHANDY, PLLC, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendant/Appellee.
REIF, J.:
¶1 This case concerns a summary judgment granted to defendant McDonald's 
Restaurants of Oklahoma, Inc., on a claim for intentional infliction of 
emotional distress filed by former employee, Camran Dunham. Plaintiff Dunham 
alleged that his supervising manager denied three requests to take prescription 
anti-seizure medication and called plaintiff a "f...ing retard" in the course of 
denying the last request. Plaintiff related that he was sixteen at the time and 
the manager's refusals caused him to fear he would suffer a seizure. He stated 
he left work crying and did not return. These events allegedly occurred on June 
1, 2006.
¶2 McDonald's did not controvert plaintiff's account of this incident on 
summary judgment. Instead, McDonald's argued that the manager's conduct was not 
"extreme and outrageous" conduct required for a claim for intentional infliction 
of emotional distress. McDonald's relied on an earlier federal court disposition 
of claims made by plaintiff under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 
denying plaintiff recovery on the ADA claims, the federal court determined that 
the manager's conduct was "not severe."
¶3 The trial court concluded that the federal court disposition constituted 
an adverse preclusive determination of the "extreme and outrageous" element of 
plaintiff's claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Court of 
Civil Appeals agreed and affirmed. For the reasons that follow, we disagree, 
vacate the Court of Civil Appeals opinion and reverse the summary 
judgment.
I.
¶4 In order to prove the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress 
or outrage, a plaintiff must prove each of the following elements: 1) the 
alleged tortfeasor acted intentionally or recklessly; 2) the alleged 
tortfeasor's conduct was extreme and outrageous; 3) the conduct caused the 
plaintiff emotional distress; and 4) the emotional distress was severe. 
Computer Publications, Inc. v. Welton, 

¶5 Issue preclusion prevents relitigation of facts and issues actually 
litigated and necessarily determined in an earlier proceeding between the 
same parties or their privies. Nealis v. Baird, 

¶6 The Court of Civil Appeals found that the federal court had necessarily 
determined that the manager's conduct was "not severe" in disposing of the 
federal ADA claims. Noting that Black's Law Dictionary 1233 (5th ed. 1979) 
treats "extreme" as a synonym for "severe," the Court of Civil Appeals drew the 
logical conclusion that conduct which is not severe cannot be "extreme and 
outrageous" under the applicable law.

¶7 The chief problem we have with this analysis is that it was not necessary 
for the federal court to make any determination about the character of the 
manager's conduct in disposing of the federal litigation. All of plaintiff's 
claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the hostile working 
environment and constructive discharge claim, were dependent upon plaintiff's 
status as a "disabled person." The federal court determined the plaintiff was 
not a disabled person.

¶8 Plaintiff's status as a disabled person was the linchpin of federal 
question jurisdiction and the determination of this issue adversely to plaintiff 
ended the court's jurisdiction to decide any other issue concerning the ADA 
claims.

¶9 When this Court reviews a claim for intentional infliction of emotional 
distress that has been rejected by the Court of Civil Appeals, we will make the 
"gatekeeper" or threshold determination of whether the defendant's conduct may 
reasonably be regarded as extreme and outrageous. Miller, 

II.
¶10 In its motion for summary judgment, McDonald's also asserted that 
plaintiff cannot prove the severe emotional distress element of intentional 
infliction of emotional distress. The motion pointed out that the trial court 
could make the "gatekeeper" or threshold determination concerning this element 
based on the federal court disposition of the ADA claims. In granting the 
motion, the trial court generally ruled that "Issue preclusion prevents 
Plaintiff from relitigating . . . the fact issue [that] (Plaintiff admitted the 
conduct was 'no big deal')." 
¶11 On appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals concluded that the trial court 
regarded this "fact issue" as dispositive of the severe emotional distress 
element of the tort. In its independent review of the federal court disposition, 
however, the Court of Civil Appeals found the federal court did not determine 
whether plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress. The Court of Civil 
Appeals ruled "the [trial] court erred in applying issue preclusion to the 
[severe emotional distress] element of the tort of outrage."
¶12 The Court of Civil Appeals also ruled summary judgment was not properly 
granted on the extreme emotional distress element of the tort, finding the 
existence of a "substantial controversy on that very issue." Our review of 
plaintiff's evidentiary materials leads us to the same conclusion.
¶13 Intentional infliction of emotional distress does not provide redress for 
every invasion of emotional serenity or every anti-social act that may produce 
hurt feelings. Id. at ¶ 33, 956 P.2d  at 900. While emotional distress can 
include all highly unpleasant mental reactions, such as fright, horror, grief, 
shame, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, chagrin, disappointment, worry, and 
nausea, it must be so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to 
endure it. Computer Publications, 

¶14 Although the Court of Civil Appeals concluded that there was a 
"substantial controversy" concerning the severity of plaintiff's emotional 
distress, the Court of Civil Appeals did not perform a "gatekeeper" assessment 
of the evidentiary materials. This omission leaves that task for this Court to 
perform.
¶15 At the time the manager refused permission to take the anti-seizure 
medicine, plaintiff Durham related he "was getting scared he might die [or] he 
could bite off his tongue or fall and hurt himself." After the manager called 
him a "f...ing retard," plaintiff ran out the door crying. As a consequence of 
this treatment, plaintiff Durham stated he became "withdrawn" and "a recluse." 
He recounted that "[h]e felt he couldn't do anything [and] was afraid he would 
suffer the same experience at another job." His mother related he "wouldn't go 
outside, slept all day and had to be home schooled." She stated he "became 
depressed and introverted." She reported "he was no longer active [and] lost 
interest in everything." Plaintiff believed a school friend who worked at 
McDonald's told other school friends about the incident and they began calling 
plaintiff a "f...ing retard" and teased him by saying, "I hear you can't even 
keep a job at McDonald's because you're a f...ing retard."
¶16 Viewing the evidentiary materials in a light most favorable to plaintiff 
Durham,

¶17 Based on the foregoing, we hold the trial court erred in granting summary 
judgment in favor of defendant McDonald's Restaurants of Oklahoma, Inc., on 
plaintiff's claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED;COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS OPINION 
VACATED;SUMMARY JUDGMENT REVERSED ANDREMANDED FOR FURTHER 
PROCEEDINGS.
¶18 COLBERT, V.C.J., KAUGER, WATT, EDMONDSON, REIF, and GURICH, JJ., 
concur.

¶19 TAYLOR, C.J., WINCHESTER, and COMBS, JJ., dissent. 
FOOTNOTES

1 "Extreme and outrageous" 
conduct, requires the existence of conduct so extreme in degree as to go beyond 
all possible bounds of decency, and which is viewed as atrocious and utterly 
intolerable in a civilized community. Kraszewski v. Baptist Med. Ctr. of 
Okla., Inc., 1996 OK 
141, ¶15, 916 P.2d 241, n.25. In general, a defendant's conduct must be such that an average 
member of the community would exclaim, "Outrageous!" Computer Publications, 
2002 OK 
50 
at ¶ 9, 49 P.3d  at 735. 

2 Federal question jurisdiction involves a claim "arising 
under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 1331 
(1976). To establish federal question jurisdiction, a federally created right or 
immunity must be an essential element of a plaintiff's cause of action. Gully 
v. First National Bank, 299 U.S. 109, 112 (1936). The ADA prohibits employers 
from discriminating against individuals on the basis of disability. Doyal v. 
Oklahoma Heart, Inc., 213 F.3d 494, 495 (10th Cir. 2000). To maintain a 
claim under the ADA, a plaintiff must be "a disabled person as defined by the 
ADA." Id. "Disability is a term of art under the ADA . . . defin[ing] 
disability as: (A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one 
or more of the major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an 
impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such an impairment." Id. A 
federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction under the ADA where the 
plaintiff's alleged disability is not covered by the ADA. Ankus v. GEICO 
Insurance Co., 69 Fed. Appx. 770, 2003 WL 21461849 (7th Cir. 2003). 

3 Manley v. Brown, 1999 OK 79, ¶ 22, 989 P.2d 448, 455. 

4 If a reasonable person might reach a different 
conclusion from the facts than that suggested by the motion for summary 
judgment, granting summary judgment would be improper. Copeland v. Tela 
Corp., 1999 OK 
81, ¶ 4, 996 P.2d 931, 933.