Opinion ID: 1654654
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pre-impact Fear

Text: Steel Technologies argues that the award for pre-impact fear conflicts with long-standing Kentucky law. Specifically, the company argues that the jury instructions and the award violated the impact rule for negligently inflicted mental damages. The Appellees respond that the impact rule was satisfied, since Mrs. Congleton was struck by the steel coil. They also imply that the impact rule should be abandoned since a negligence action need only show that the negligent conduct caused harm. The Appellees' complaint included a claim for pain and suffering of Mrs. Congleton. However, at the close of their case, the trial court determined that there had been no evidence of pain and suffering after the impact because the evidence indicated that Mrs. Congleton was struck unconscious by the impact. Nevertheless, the court chose to instruct the jury on whether an award for pre-impact fear was appropriate. The judge referred to several unnamed cases for the proposition that under Kentucky law, pre-impact emotional distress damages are allowed when there is a touching involved; he also distinguished this case from those where someone is scared, for example, by a mean look without any contact. The court then gave the following instruction to the jury: If you believe from the evidence that Melissa Congleton, as a result of the steel coil falling off the truck and colliding with her vehicle suffered serious emotional anxiety arising from the fear of injury, and that said fear was reasonable, that the occurrence of such injury was a reasonable medical likelihood, and that the anxiety was caused by exposure to the risk for which Steel Technologies, Inc. is legally responsible, then you may decide to award damages for emotional distress suffered by Melissa Congleton, if any, from the time she may have anticipated said event, and up until the moment she lost consciousness. Under this instruction, the jury awarded $100,000 in such damages. The evidence to support the damages included skid marks, implying that Mrs. Congleton saw the coil before she hit it, and testimony that even after death, her face was fixed in the expression of a scream. Though it is not clear what cases the trial judge relied on, his characterization of the law was partly accurate in that a touching has traditionally been required before recovery may be had for negligently inflicted emotional distress. It is well established in this jurisdiction that `an action will not lie for fright, shock or mental anguish which is unaccompanied by physical contact or injury.' Deutsch v. Shein, 597 S.W.2d 141, 145-46 (Ky.1980) (quoting Morgan v. Hightower's Adm'r, 291 Ky. 58, 59-60, 163 S.W.2d 21, 22 (1942)); see also Brown v. Crawford, 296 Ky. 249, 253, 177 S.W.2d 1, 3 (1943) (This court is committed to the doctrine that in ordinary actions for mere negligence or where the injury to another is not willful, there can be no recovery for mental suffering where there has been no physical contact.). In fact, the Appellees' brief relies heavily on Deutsch , describing its holding as requiring only a touching, which could be remote from any emotional injury. In fact, the case does note that [c]ontact, however slight, trifling, or trivial, will support a cause of action. Id. The Appellees argue that cases like Deutsch have followed the spirit and essence of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which allows recovery for fright, shock, or other emotional disturbance resulting from the bodily harm or from the conduct which causes it. . . . Restatement (Second) of Torts § 456(a) (1965). A comment to that section indicates that recovery should be allowed in a situation similar to this one. Id. § 456(a) cmt. e (Thus one who is struck by a negligently driven automobile and suffers a broken leg may recover not only for his pain, grief, or worry resulting from the broken leg, but also for his fright at seeing the car about to hit him.). The Court of Appeals relied heavily on this section of the Restatement in reaching its decision. However, this reading of the Deutsch is incomplete. As Deutsch goes on to note, it is necessary that the damages for mental distress sought to be recovered be related to, and the direct and natural result of, the physical contact or injury sustained. Id. (emphasis added). Kentucky also has a line of cases holding that a cause of action does not even accrue until physical injury manifests. See also Wood v. Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, Div. of American Home Products, 82 S.W.3d 849 (Ky.2002); Capital Holding Corp. v. Bailey, 873 S.W.2d 187 (Ky.1994); Davis v. Graviss, 672 S.W.2d 928 (Ky.1984); Louisville Trust Co. v. Johns-Manville Products, 580 S.W.2d 497 (Ky.1979). The rule derived from these cases then is clear: It is not enough that emotional distress be accompanied by contact  it must be caused by the contact. This also means that any contact must precede the emotional distress before recovery is permissible under a negligence theory. The approach found in the Restatement does not reflect the law as it currently stands in Kentucky. The rationale for the current rule is that pre-impact fear, like other alleged negligently caused emotional distress, is possibly trivial and simply too speculative and difficult to measure unless is it directly linked to and caused by a physical harm. Deutsch, 597 S.W.2d at 145-46 (`The reason being that such damages are too remote and speculative, are easily simulated and difficult to disprove, and there is no standard by which they can be justly measured.' (quoting Morgan v. Hightower's Adm'r, 291 Ky. 58, 59-60, 163 S.W.2d 21, 22 (1942))). The proof of the fear in this case  the testimony of a person at the scene of the accident that the decedent's facial expression showed she saw the accident coming and was terrified  simply underscores the speculative nature of such harm. Mrs. Congleton's mental distress, if any, simply was caused not by the impact she suffered, but by fear of the impact. Under the impact rule as currently applied in Kentucky, her pre-impact fear and shock cannot serve as the basis of a claim, and any damages for such a claim are not recoverable. The approach to the impact rule urged by the Appellees (and applied by the Court of Appeals) amounts to an alteration of the impact rule making it merely an accompanied-by-impact rule. The Appellees have also implied the Court should simply do away with the impact rule altogether; the amicus brief submitted by the Kentucky Academy of Trial Attorneys (KATA) explicitly argues that the rule should be abandoned. That, however, is easier said than done. Crafting a new, reasonable rule that would still take into account the concerns about the danger of fraud and speculative nature of mental harms would be difficult without the proper case. Even the rule on intentional infliction of emotional distress, for which no contact has traditionally been required, recognizes these concerns and imposes greater restrictions than would come under the non-traditional and non-impact rules proposed by the Appellees and KATA. See Craft v. Rice, 671 S.W.2d 247, 249 (Ky.1984) (holding that tort of outrage requires that the conduct be outrageous and intolerable in that it offends against the generally accepted standards of decency and morality, and that the emotional distress be severe). Divining a new rule is further exacerbated in this case by the speculative nature of the proof at trial, which consisted primarily of the opinion of an emergency services worker about what the grimace on the victim's face meant. There was no scientific or medical proof of mental injury, and the victim herself was not available to testify, having been killed by the impact. In fact, wrongful death actions such as this are not susceptible to the sort of proof that might counsel in favor of altering or abandoning the impact rule. On the other hand, injury actions could well give rise to a strong challenge to the impact rule in the future if the victim can give a first-hand account or reliable eye-witness testimony is available, and there is demonstrable evidence of mental distress manifesting in a medical injury proven through expert testimony. Absent such proof in this case, the Court declines to alter the impact rule. Since the pre-impact fright damages in this case conflict with the impact rule as it currently stands, that portion of the judgment must be reversed.