Opinion ID: 2615936
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Mary Ann's causes of action for loss of Michael's comfort and society and for her own injuries were properly dismissed.

Text: Plaintiff Mary Ann Hoyem's cause of action for her expenditures on Michael's behalf was, like Michael's own cause of action, improperly dismissed. Her other causes of action, however, for loss of Michael's comfort and society and for her own injuries on viewing Michael in the hospital, are precluded by recent decisions of this court. (7) In Baxter v. Superior Court (1977) 19 Cal.3d 461, 463 [138 Cal. Rptr. 315, 563 P.2d 871], this court declined to enlarge the parent's cause of action to permit recovery for the loss of affection and society when a child is injured. Mary Ann's cause of action on this score cannot stand. (8) Mary Ann also urges that this court extend the cause of action we recognized in Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728 [68 Cal. Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316], to include a plaintiff who suffers emotional and physical injury when seeing the primary victim of defendant's negligence hours after the accident. In Dillon this court set out the rule that courts should allow recovery to a mother who suffers emotional trauma and physical injury from witnessing the infliction of death or injury to her child for which the tortfeasor is liable in negligence. (Italics added.) (68 Cal.2d at p. 730.) The Court of Appeal in Deboe v. Horn (1971) 16 Cal. App.3d 221 [94 Cal. Rptr. 77] declined to extend the Dillon rule to include a wife who suffered emotional and physical injury when seeing her husband in the hospital hours after he had been injured in an automobile accident due to defendant's negligence. Recently, in Justus v. Atchison (1977) 19 Cal.3d 564 [139 Cal. Rptr. 97, 565 P.2d 122], we approved the Deboe opinion and denied recovery to an expectant father who was present in the delivery room when the fetus of his unborn child died, but who did not know of the death until later informed by doctors. We held in Justus that  Dillon requires more than mere physical presence: ... the shock must also result from a `direct emotional impact' on the plaintiff caused by `sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident.' (19 Cal.3d at p. 584.) Mary Ann's Dillon cause of action, was therefore, properly dismissed.