Opinion ID: 1666464
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Recovery of Damages under Article 2315.6

Text: For many years, Louisiana and other jurisdictions declined to recognize a cause of action for recovery of mental anguish damages based on negligent infliction of emotional distress when the claimant's mental anguish resulted from a tort-caused physical injury to another. See, e.g., Black v. Carrollton RR Co., 10 La. Ann. 33 (1855). Recovery in early cases was allowed only for mental anguish that was parasitic to a physical injury, when the claimant could show some sort of impact, however slight, upon his person. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser & Keeton on Torts, 363 (5th ed.1984). Later cases allowed recovery for mental anguish when there was physical injury to a person other than the plaintiff, if the plaintiff was in the zone of danger of the harm that befell the other person. Id. at 365. The common rationale for limiting recovery to these situations was that, absent impact or a near miss, the defendant could not reasonably have anticipated any harm to the plaintiff and therefore should not be held liable for such harm. Id. Probably the first reported modern case to allow a claim for bystander damages beyond the limits of the impact or zone of danger rules was Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal.2d 728, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912 (1968). In Dillon, the California Supreme Court allowed a claim for emotional distress damages by a mother who saw her young daughter run over and killed by an automobile. The court stated that the mothers shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon plaintiff from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident. Id. at 920 (emphasis added). Prior to 1990, Louisiana followed the pre Dillon common law jurisprudence, even though mental anguish damages resulting from injury to another person literally fell within the scope of La. Civ.Code art. 2315. This court reconsidered that position in Lejeune v. Rayne Branch Hosp., 556 So.2d 559 (La.1990), in which the plaintiff's husband was hospitalized in a comatose condition. The plaintiff entered the hospital room and observed her husband shortly after a nurse had cleaned some of the blood from wounds caused by rats chewing on her husband's face, neck and legs. Although the plaintiff was neither physically injured nor exposed to the physical injury that befell her husband, this court, applying the duty-risk analysis, held that the risk to a person of mental anguish damages occasioned by the negligent infliction of injury to a third person may, under certain circumstances, fall within the scope of the hospital's duty under Article 2315. The decision outlined four circumstances under which mental anguish damages may be recovered, the one pertinent to the present case being: A claimant need not be physically injured, nor suffer physical impact in the same accident in order to be awarded mental pain and anguish damages arising out of injury to another. Nor need he be in the zone of danger to which the directly injured party is exposed. He must, however, either view the accident or injury-causing event or come upon the accident scene soon thereafter and before substantial change has occurred in the victim's condition. [5] Id. at 569-70 (emphasis added). The following year, the Legislature codified the Lejeune decision by enacting La. Civ.Code art. 2315.6, which allows certain persons who view an event causing injury to another person, or who come upon the scene of the event soon thereafter [to] recover damages for mental anguish or emotional distress that they suffer as a result of the other person's injury.... [6] La. Civ.Code art. 2315.6 A. If recovery of mental anguish damages resulting from negligently caused physical injury to another person had been allowed prior to the Lejeune decision, a tortfeasor, under the literal terms of Article 2315, might have been held liable to repair any damages remotely caused by his or her fault. However, liability for fault does not extend to all damages that result from that fault. Hill v. Lundin & Assoc., 260 La. 542, 256 So.2d 620 (1972). As a matter of policy, the courts, under the scope of duty element of the duty-risk analysis, have established limitations on the extent of damages for which a tortfeasor is liable. See, e.g., PPG Industries v. Bean Dredging, Inc., 447 So.2d 1058 (La.1984), in which this court held that the liability of a dredging contractor who negligently damaged a natural gas pipeline does not extend to the economic losses incurred by the pipeline owner's contract customer who was required to obtain gas at a higher price from another source during the period of repair of the damaged pipeline. This court noted that the list of possible victims and the extent of economic damages might be extended indefinitely unless the court made a policy decision placing some limitation on the recovery of damages. The Lejeune decision, while recognizing for the first time a claimant's right to recover mental anguish damages resulting from negligently caused physical injury to another, carefully delineated limitations on bystander recovery. But for this limitation, liability might have been extended, under the literal terms of Article 2315, to allow recovery of mental anguish damages by an acquaintance of the tort victim who learned of the injury by telephone call several days after the injury-causing event. The Legislature, in codifying the Lejeune decision, placed further limitations by specifying the category of persons who may recover. More significantly, the Legislature prohibited any recovery of mental anguish damages resulting from the negligent infliction of injury to another, except under the circumstances outlined in Article 2315.6. [7] Accordingly, this right of recovery has been recognized jurisprudentially and legislatively to exist only under very limited circumstances.