Opinion ID: 1168538
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defendants' cross-assignments: Instructions.

Text: Defendants presented certain cross-assignments of error which the Court of Appeals, in affirming the trial court's decision for defendants, did not need to reach. Because we reverse the decision that there was insufficient evidence to support a jury verdict, we must reach them here. Defendants' first two cross-assignments concern the denial of certain requested jury instructions. The trial court defined the tort for the jury in the following terms: One who, through conduct which is outrageous in the extreme, intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another, is subject to liability for such emotional distress. Plaintiff can recover here if Plaintiff establishes the following: First, extreme and outrageous conduct by the Defendants; Second, the Defendants engaged in such conduct intentionally or recklessly; Third, that Plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress as a result of such conduct. One of defendants' requested instructions would have stated: Liability for the tort of outrageous conduct exists only where the conduct of the defendants has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to be beyond the pale of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society. The trial court did not err in declining to give this instruction. It should be recalled that neither the appellate courts nor draftsmen of proposed uniform jury instructions prescribe in the first instance the exact form in which a trial judge must explain the law to a jury. Defendants argue that more than the definition given by the trial court in this case should be provided, pointing out that the jury requested additional explanation of the term outrageous behavior in the extreme. This may well be true. As we have said, adjectives of degree such as outrageous and extreme may be helpful, but they are not words of art; if used as isolated terms of condemnation they may substitute mere indignation for the required attention to the intent and the actual effect of inflicting severe distress by socially intolerable means. [4] A court might well go further to explain the nature of the social judgment required of jurors under such rubrics as outrageous or extreme in the context of the type of case before them, if it uses these epithets at all. But defendants' instruction would not contribute to such an explanation. It proposed to heighten the required level of indignation by adding to outrageous and extreme such additional modifiers as atrocious and utterly. This would revert to the contest of epithets which the court found to be of minimal aid in Rockhill v. Pollard, supra, 259 Or. at 60, 485 P.2d 28. Two other instructions requested by defendants sought to express a distinction between extreme outrageous conduct and mere annoyances or affronts, for which defendant would not be liable. [5] Ordinarily, if a jury is correctly instructed on those elements that it must find in order to reach an affirmative conclusion, a court need not go further and submit the opposing side's version of various circumstances that would not suffice to reach the disputed conclusion. Perhaps a trial court would find it helpful to do so in explaining a tort like the present, which calls for a judgment of degree that courts and commentators have not found easy to articulate. Given the previously mentioned fact that the tort was synthesized to describe very different kinds of actionable conduct in a variety of different settings, it may be unwise to search for a single verbal formula to cover every case in which plaintiff seeks recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress. It therefore may not be improper to include in the explanation of the tort some phrases indicating the limits of its reach as suggested by defendants. But we cannot say that the negative instructions proposed by defendant were either so correct [6] or so essential that failure to give them was reversible error.