Opinion ID: 1964897
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Serious and verifiable injury.

Text: The defendants contend, and the trial judge held as a matter of law, that the injuries sustained by the somatization plaintiffs were not sufficiently serious or verifiable to entitle these plaintiffs to any recovery. We disagree. As we have previously noted, the employee-plaintiffs did not claim during the presentation of the evidence that they had the right to an award of damages even if they could not show that they had suffered a physical neurological injury. After the plaintiffs' counsel belatedly introduced this contention into the case during his argument to the jury, the compensability of negligently inflicted somatoform disorder emerged as a central issue in the case. The trial judge analyzed somatization as a psychogenic injury, and the somatization plaintiffs' case became, in effect, an action for the negligent infliction of emotional distress. In light of this development, the principal question presented by the plaintiffs' appeal is whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, would permit an impartial juror to find in the plaintiffs' favor in a negligent infliction action. Because the parties did not recognize until late in the proceedings that the case would implicate the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress, the evidence was not organized or presented with the elements of that kind of claim in mind. Nevertheless, we conclude that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, was sufficient to permit an impartial jury to find in the somatization plaintiffs' favor. Ten years ago, the en banc court held in Williams v. Baker, supra, 572 A.2d at 1067, that if the plaintiff was in the zone of physical danger and was caused by defendant's negligence to fear for his or her own safety, the plaintiff may recover for negligent infliction of serious emotional distress.... In a negligent infliction case, there can be recovery for mental and emotional distress only if the plaintiff's injuries are serious and verifiable. See Sowell, supra, 623 A.2d at 1225; Jones v. Howard Univ., 589 A.2d 419, 421 (D.C. 1991). The trial judge was of the opinion that the somatization plaintiffs' injuries were neither serious nor verifiable. This court has previously sought to identify the kind of psychogenic injury which is sufficient to sustain a complaint for negligent infliction of emotional distress: The fact that the different forms of emotional disturbance are accompanied by transitory, non-recurring physical phenomena, harmless in themselves, such as dizziness, vomiting, and the like, does not make the actor liable where such phenomena are in themselves inconsequential and do not amount to any substantial bodily harm. On the other hand, long-continued nausea or headaches may amount to physical illness, which is bodily harm; and even long continued mental disturbance, as for example in the case of repeated hysterical attacks, or mental aberration, may be classified by the courts as illness, notwithstanding their mental character. This becomes a medical or psychiatric problem, rather than one of law. Williams, supra, 572 A.2d at 1068 (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 436A cmt. c). In the present case, the symptoms reported by the somatization plaintiffs were not transitory, non-recurring, or inconsequential. On the contrary, these plaintiffs complained of debilitating fatigue, loss of motor control, persistent cognitive problems, extreme depression sometimes approaching paranoia, flu-like pains, shortness of breath, and a variety of other symptoms. According to the somatization plaintiffs and their witnesses, these conditions sometimes lasted for months at a time and, in some cases, periodically recurred for years. To be sure, there was significant testimony which, if credited, would have sustained a finding that the harm suffered by the somatization plaintiffs was not sufficiently serious to support recovery. We are satisfied, however, that the issue of seriousness was not so one-sided in favor of the defendants that no question for the jury was presented. There was also ample evidence that the somatization plaintiffs' injuries were verifiable. The defense effectively conceded that the plaintiffs were not feigning their symptoms or fabricating their complaints. On the contrary, Dr. Abba Terr, a specialist in internal medicine and allergy immunology who appeared as an expert witness for the defense, testified as follows: Their symptoms are absolutely real. I want to make that clear. What they are experiencing is, I don't believe they make it up. I think they are relating exactly how they feel, and they do suffer from it, the concept that it was caused by chemicals is the belief, not the reality of their symptoms. A second defense expert, Dr. Philip Witorsch, a specialist in pulmonary diseases whose area of concentration is environmental and occupational medicine, testified as follows: Somatoform or somatization in general refers to a circumstance where people are having real symptoms. They're not imagining the symptoms. They clearly have symptoms and discomfort in many cases, and they're experiencing physical symptoms. However, the physical symptoms are not on the basis of any physical injury, but rather the result of emotions. In addition, the somatization plaintiffs' experiences were described for the jury not only by the plaintiffs themselves, but also by their physicians, and by spouses and other fact witnesses. The similarity of some of the symptoms suffered by all four of the somatization plaintiffs rendered their experiences, in some measure, mutually corroborative. Each plaintiff's account tended to verify the complaints of his or her fellow-plaintiffs. Finally, the somatization plaintiffs' symptoms substantially corresponded to the complaints reported by many hundreds of EPA employees in the 1988 survey, to the testimony of Nurse Hogrefe, and to the reports of EPA consultants. See note 4, supra. Somatoform disorder is a recognized medical condition, see DSM-IV at 445, and it has served as the basis for an award of damages. In Wasiak v. Omaha Pub. Power Dist., 253 Neb. 46, 568 N.W.2d 229, 232-33 (1997), a case involving injuries suffered by Charles Wasiak in an automobile accident, the plaintiff reported symptoms similar to those related by some of the somatization plaintiffs here. In Wasiak, as in the present case, the plaintiff's experts testified that the plaintiff had suffered physical injury. The defense experts, on the other hand, asserted that Wasiak's symptoms were attributable to somatization. The trial judge agreed with the defense that the accident had caused no physical injury, but he nevertheless held that Wasiak was entitled to recover damages for his somatization disorder. The defendants appealed, claiming, inter alia, that Wasiak had failed to prove causation. The Supreme Court of Nebraska affirmed the judgment, relying on the trial judge's finding that Wasiak's somatization was another manifestation of injury resulting from the 1991 accident. Id. at 233 (italics omitted). [10] In the present case, an impartial jury could reasonably find that the psychogenic injuries suffered by the somatization plaintiffs were serious and verifiable, and that a somatoform disorder is compensable. We conclude that the trial judge erred in holding to the contrary.