Title: Goode v. Bayhealth Medical Center, Inc.

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
SHARONDA GOODE,  
 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
No. 431, 2006 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
 
 
§ 
Appellant,  
 
 
§ 
Court Below:  Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
of the State of Delaware in and 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
for Kent County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
BAYHEALTH MEDICAL  
 
§ 
CENTER, INC. 
 
 
 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
§ 
No. 03C-05-001 
 
Defendant Below,  
 
§ 
 
Appellees.  
 
 
§ 
 
Submitted:  May 2, 2007 
 
 
 
 
         Decided:  July 18, 2007 
  
Before HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS, and RIDGELY, Justices, and 
PARSONS, Vice Chancellor,1 constituting the Court en Banc. 
 
O R D E R 
 
This 18th day of July 2007, it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
Appellant Sharonda Goode appeals a Superior Court judgment in 
favor of Bayhealth Medical Center, Inc. in this civil action to recover damages for 
emotional distress.  Judgment was entered in favor of Bayhealth after a jury found 
that the negligence of Bayhealth was not the proximate cause of Goode’s injuries.  
Goode raises two arguments on appeal.  First, she contends that the Superior Court 
erred as a matter of law by failing to instruct the jury on her claim of outrageous 
                                          
 
1 Sitting by designation pursuant to Del. Const. art. IV, § 12 and Supr. Ct. R. 2 & 4.   
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conduct causing severe emotional distress.  Second, Goode contends that the 
Superior Court abused its discretion by precluding certain testimony by her 
psychiatrist about the duty of a hospital, from a psychiatric standpoint, with respect 
to the handling of bodies.  We find no merit to Goode’s arguments and affirm. 
 
(2) 
On April 24, 2001, Goode delivered a twenty-three week stillborn 
girl, Denise Goode, at Bayhealth Medical Center.  Although the attending hospital 
staff twice offered her the opportunity to see or hold Denise, Goode declined.  
Goode subsequently authorized the autopsy and burial of Denise’s body.  She 
claimed that she was instructed to choose a funeral home and to have the funeral 
director contact the hospital to arrange the release of the body.  
 
(3) 
Goode testified that she was told that Bayhealth would contact her 
about the final disposition of Denise’s body.  When she had not heard from 
Bayhealth, Goode became worried and called the hospital on May 10, 2001.  
According to Goode, she was informed by the hospital staff that her baby remained 
in the morgue as an unidentified and unclaimed body.    
(4) 
Goode also testified that she spoke with her chosen funeral home’s 
director, William Torbert, regarding the situation.  She said that Torbert informed 
her that she needed to go and identify the body before Bayhealth would release the 
baby to him.  At trial, Torbert directly contradicted Goode’s assertion.  
Particularly, he testified that he did not tell Goode to go to the hospital and identify 
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the body.  It is undisputed that Goode and her friend, Shavell Miller, went to 
Bayhealth on May 11, 2001 for the purpose of identifying Denise’s body.  
(5) 
After Goode and Miller arrived at the hospital, Goode told a secretary 
in the hospital’s Social Services Department that she was there to claim or identify 
the body of her baby.  The secretary received authorization from her supervisor to 
take Goode and Miller to the morgue.  A Bayhealth security officer unlocked and 
opened the morgue for them.  Once in the morgue, Goode was unable to go 
through with viewing Denise’s body.  It was agreed that Goode would wait in the 
hallway while Miller did so.   
(6) 
The Bayhealth morgue had a large window that was covered by a 
venetian blind.  The bottom of the blind was slightly bent, which allowed for a 
small unobstructed view of the inside of the morgue.  Goode briefly peered 
through this opening and by doing so, saw the post-autopsy remains of Denise’s 
body.  Goode became extremely upset and has claimed that she suffered post-
traumatic stress disorder as a result of viewing Denise.  That diagnosis was not 
documented until April 30, 2003, nearly two years after Goode viewed Denise’s 
body and one day before this lawsuit was filed.  The evidence also showed that 
Goode had suffered from seven or eight previous failed pregnancies, none of which 
resulted in the delivery of a live child, some having been aborted and others having 
ended in stillbirth. 
 4
(7) 
Bayhealth had a Death Procedure Policy in place on May 11, 2001 
which provided a protocol for the viewing of bodies.  It is undisputed that this 
procedure was not followed by hospital staff.   Bayhealth’s Death Procedure Policy 
provided that the Clinical Coordinator must be notified if family members request 
to view a body.  The Clinical Coordinator is then required to determine (1) whether 
a viewing is warranted, (2) whether the body is an “ME” (medical examiner) case, 
and (3) whether the party that requested the viewing is a member of the deceased’s 
immediate family.  If it is determined that a viewing is appropriate, the Clinical 
Coordinator must then obtain two sheets or blankets and meet security at the 
morgue to prepare the body for viewing.  After the body is prepared, the policy 
required that a nurse accompany the family member to the morgue and act as a 
“support person.”  The secretary who escorted Goode was not trained on the Death 
Procedure Policy.     
 (8) 
After the evidence was presented, Goode requested the trial judge to 
instruct the jury on her claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress and also 
on her separate claim of outrageous conduct causing severe emotional distress.  
The trial judge declined the latter, finding that such an instruction “requires 
conduct which is absent in this case.”  He explained that “there is not a showing of 
activity on the part of the defendant which rises to the level of anything beyond 
inartful or inexpert, or untrained or deficiently thoughtful activity.”  Following the 
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submission of the case to the jury only on the claim of negligent infliction of 
emotional distress, the jury found that Bayhealth acted negligently, but that its 
negligence was not the proximate cause of Goode’s injury.  The Superior Court 
entered judgment in favor of Bayhealth and this appeal followed. 
 
(9) 
Goode first contends that the trial judge erred as a matter of law by 
failing to instruct the jury on her claim of outrageous conduct causing severe 
emotional distress.  “This Court reviews de novo the Superior Court’s denial of a 
requested jury instruction.”2  
 
(10) We find no merit to Goode’s claim of error because the trial judge 
correctly concluded that there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to 
support an outrageous conduct instruction. Section 46 of The Restatement 
(Second) of Torts addresses the tort of outrageous conduct causing severe 
emotional distress.  According to the Restatement, “[o]ne who by extreme and 
outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to 
another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the 
other results from it, for such bodily harm.”3  This Court cited Section 46 in 
Cummings v. Pinder4 and held that “[t]he intentional infliction of severe emotional 
                                          
 
2 Gutierrez v. State, 842 A.2d 650, 651 (Del. 2004) (citing Lunnon v. State, 710 A.2d 197, 199 
(Del. 1998)). 
3 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 (1965). 
4 Cummings v. Pinder, 574 A.2d 843 (Del. 1990). 
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distress may provide the legal predicate for an award of damages, even in the 
absence of accompanying bodily harm, if such conduct is viewed as outrageous.”5  
Section 46 applies when the actor acts intentionally or recklessly.6  In either case, 
the behavior must be extreme and outrageous.  “The law intervenes when the 
distress inflicted is so severe that no reasonable [person] could be expected to 
endure it.”7  Outrageous behavior is conduct that exceeds the bounds of decency 
and is regarded as intolerable in a civilized community.8  It is the trial judge’s 
responsibility “to determine in the first instance, whether the defendant’s conduct 
may reasonably be regarded as so extreme and outrageous as to permit recovery, or 
whether it is necessarily so.”9 
(11) Here, the trial judge correctly recognized that the evidence presented 
did not support a claim of extreme and outrageous conduct causing severe 
emotional distress.  While negligence was demonstrated, the Bayhealth employees 
that responded to Goode’s request to see her baby, were simply trying to 
accommodate a grieving mother.  We agree with the trial judge that the negligent 
behavior here did not rise to the level of extreme and outrageous conduct.  
                                          
 
5 Id. at 845. 
6 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 (1).   
7 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46, cmt. j.   
8 Thomas v. Harford Mutual Ins. Co., 2004 WL 1102362, at *3 (Del. Super.)  (citing Farmer v.  
Wilson, 1992 WL 331450, at *4 (Del. Super.) (citations omitted)).  
9 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 cmt. h; Collins v. African Episcopal Zion Church, 2006 
WL 1579718 (Del. Super.); see also Thomas, 2004 WL 1102362, at *3. 
 7
Accordingly, the Superior Court did not err in denying Goode’s request for a jury 
instruction on outrageous conduct causing severe emotional distress.   
(12) Goode’s second contention is that the Superior Court abused its 
discretion by precluding her expert witness, Neil S. Kaye, M.D., from testifying 
about Bayhealth’s duty to properly prepare Goode for the viewing of Denise’s 
body.  During the course of Dr. Kaye’s testimony, Goode’s counsel sought to elicit 
certain testimony regarding the duty of a hospital, from a psychiatric standpoint, 
with respect to the viewing of bodies.  Bayhealth objected on the ground that Dr. 
Kaye had not been identified as a standard of care expert.  The Superior Court 
sustained Bayhealth’s objection.   
(13) This Court “reviews the Superior Court’s evidentiary rulings 
restricting or allowing expert testimony under an abuse of discretion standard.”10  
“When an act of judicial discretion is under review the reviewing court may not 
substitute its own notions of what is right for those of the trial judge, if his 
judgment was based upon conscience and reason, as opposed to capriciousness or 
arbitrariness.”11 
                                          
 
10 Bush v. HMO of Delaware, 702 A.2d 921, 923 (Del. 1996). 
11 Sammons v. Doctors for Emergency Serv., P.A., 913 A.2d 519, 528 (Del. 2006). 
 8
(14) A trial judge has broad discretion to control scheduling and the court’s 
docket.12  Scheduling and pretrial orders govern discovery by establishing 
deadlines and also guide trial management.13 Parties must comply with the 
discovery orders as a precondition to the admissibility of expert testimony at trial.14  
In this case, the Superior Court set a deadline of December 15, 2003 for the 
identification of experts.  Goode did not identify Dr. Kaye as an expert witness 
until August of 2005, without any application to modify the previous deadline.  
Bayhealth agreed to permit the testimony of Dr. Kaye as to his diagnosis and 
prognosis for Goode, but clearly reserved its right to object to testimony from Dr. 
Kaye beyond that.  With the expectation that Goode would not seek testimony 
beyond the subject of diagnosis and prognosis, no deposition was taken of Dr. 
Kaye before trial.   
(15)   When a party does not comply with the discovery rules and pre-trial 
orders, it is not an abuse of discretion for the trial judge to exclude testimony not 
properly identified.15  The trial judge did not abuse his discretion when he 
sustained Bayhealth’s objection to testimony by Dr. Kaye on the standard of care 
for a hospital.  Moreover, Goode has not shown prejudice flowing from the trial 
                                          
 
12 Valentine v. Mark, 873 A.2d 1099 (Del. 2005) (Table). 
13 Sammons, 913 A.2d at 528. 
14 Id.  
15 See id. at 531. 
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judge’s decision to preclude Dr. Kaye’s opinion on the hospital’s standard of care.  
The jury expressly found that the hospital was negligent without the aid of Dr. 
Kaye’s testimony.   
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/Henry duPont Ridgely 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice