Opinion ID: 2178388
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hadley's Complement: Stewart v Rudner

Text: The propriety of an award of emotional distress damages in certain contract actions was given this Court's imprimatur in the seminal case of Stewart v Rudner, 349 Mich 459; 84 NW2d 816 (1957) (Justice TALBOT SMITH writing for three others concurring; the four remaining Justices concurred in result alone but without separate opinion). In upholding a jury award of emotional distress contract damages for a doctor's breach in failing to perform a Caesarean section, Justice SMITH surveyed the historical application of Hadley in both commercial and personal contractual transactions, and concluded: [N]ot all contracts are purely commercial in their nature. Some involve rights we cherish, dignities we respect, emotions recognized by all as both sacred and personal. In such cases the award of damages for mental distress and suffering is a commonplace, even in actions ex contractu.  Stewart, supra, 469.  `While it is true that if the breach causes no actual injury beyond vexation and annoyance, as all breaches of contract do more or less, they are not subjects of compensation, unless to the extent that the contract was made specially to procure exemption from them. To that extent, that is, where a contract is made to secure relief from a particular inconvenience or annoyance, or to confer a particular enjoyment, the breach, so far as it disappoints in respect of that purpose, may give a right to damages appropriate to the objects of the contract.'