Opinion ID: 1168538
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Tort

Text: Plaintiff's claim rests on a tort theory which Professor William Prosser synthesized from scattered cases allowing recovery for mental distress in a variety of factual settings. Prosser, Intentional Infliction of Mental Suffering: A New Tort, 37 Mich. L.Rev. 874 (1939); see White, Tort Law in America 102-106 (1980). In such an effort to describe divergent factual patterns as instances of a single tort, it is not easy to define the elements of the tort so as to fit all cases. As appears from the title given it in Prosser's article, however, and later embraced in the Restatement of Torts § 46, Conduct Intended to Cause Emotional Distress Only, (1948 Supp. 612-616), the theory of plaintiff's claim belongs among the intentional torts. Like most torts, it is marked by the elements of a defendant's state of mind, the character of the defendant's act that causes the plaintiff's injury, the nature of plaintiff's injury, and under some circumstances the relationship between plaintiff and defendant. See Brewer v. Erwin, 287 Or. 435, 454-458, 600 P.2d 398 (1979). In the cases, the element of defendant's intent ranges from a calculated purpose to inflict mental or emotional distress because of personal hostility, or for some impersonal purpose like the debt collection methods in Turman v. Central Billing Bureau, Inc., 279 Or. 443, 568 P.2d 1382 (1977), through the mindless amusement of practical jokes, as in the leading case of Wilkinson v. Downton, [1897] 2 Q.B. 57, to encompass also the intent to do the painful act with knowledge that it will cause grave distress, when the defendant's position in relation to the plaintiff involves some responsibility aside from the tort itself, as this court found in the case of a physician who turned away accident victims seeking his help. Rockhill v. Pollard, 259 Or. 54, 485 P.2d 28 (1971). Lack of foresight, indifference to possible distress, even gross negligence is not enough to support this theory of recovery. Apart from intent, defendant's act must in fact cause plaintiff mental or emotional distress of a severe and serious kind; the tort does not provide recovery for the kind of temporary annoyance or injured feelings that can result from friction and rudeness among people in day-to-day life even when the intentional conduct causing plaintiff's distress otherwise qualifies for liability. Similarly, insults, harsh or intimidating words, or rude behavior ordinarily do not result in liability for damages even when intended to cause distress. Contemporary standards of civility hardly allow turning every case of justified indignation into an action for financial recompense. See Brewer v. Erwin, supra, 287 Or. at 457, 600 P.2d 398 (1979), Pakos v. Clark, 253 Or. 113, 132, 453 P.2d 682 (1969). The tort requires some extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct. In attempting to articulate what separates actionable conduct from the ordinary run of crudely aggressive, overbearing, or ill-tempered behavior, Prosser and the Restatement turned to adjectives like outrageous and extreme. These are not words of art; other words or phrases could serve as well. All are designed only to express the outer end of some gradation or scale of impropriety and social disapproval. No more can be conveyed by defining one epithet by another. As the court said in Rockhill v. Pollard, supra, 259 Or. at 60, 485 P.2d 28, for the purpose of informing a trial court's exercise of its own responsibility, as in this case, the facts of the decided cases probably convey more than any battery of verbal formulas. As already stated, Rockhill sustained a recovery when a physician, called to his office on a December evening to meet injured accident victims including an unconscious infant, rudely refused to administer proper medical examinations or emergency treatment. The conclusion rested substantially on the physician's professional obligations toward patients. [1] A preceding decision, the first in this state to discuss the Restatement formulation, sustained a nonsuit against a plaintiff who claimed that deputy sheriffs upset and frustrated him when he went to the sheriff's office to inquire about a charge made against him. The court held that even if the officers' conduct was annoying or insulting, an indignity to plaintiff and conduct unbecoming peace officers, a jury could not reasonably find it so extreme and outrageous as to permit recovery. Pakos v. Clark, 253 Or. 113, 132, 453 P.2d 682 (1969). A third decision, Turman v. Central Billing Bureau, Inc., supra , affirmed the liability of a debt collection agency which pursued plaintiff with abusive and threatening telephone calls even after learning that plaintiff had made arrangements with the creditor to settle the debt. Most recently, in Brewer v. Erwin, supra , we described Turman as falling within a well recognized line of cases involving personally abusive business tactics ... against inexperienced and vulnerable individuals. 287 Or. at 457, 600 P.2d 398. In Brewer itself, a landlord began to demolish a building from which he had attempted to evict the plaintiff, after previous encounters in which defendants threatened and used physical force against plaintiff or her friends, and the court held it a jury question whether this was done deliberately to intimidate plaintiff into giving up her apartment, and if so, whether defendants' choice of means went beyond the outer limits of what a reasonable person in plaintiff's position should be expected to tolerate in an arm's-length dispute. 287 Or. at 458, 600 P.2d 398. These cases show that there are at least three distinguishable issues facing a trial court in a case like the present. The first is whether the relationship between a defendant and the victim of the alleged tort is one that imposes on the defendant a greater obligation to refrain from subjecting the victim to abuse, fright, or shock than would be true in arm's-length encounters among strangers. The character of the relationship bears on the mental element required to impose liability, compare Rockhill with Turman and Brewer, and also on the next issue, the offensiveness of conduct that crosses the threshold of potential liability, see Pakos v. Clark, supra . The second issue facing a trial court is whether the acts alleged against the defendant, if proved, qualify as extraordinary conduct which a reasonable jury could find beyond the farthest reaches of socially tolerable behavior, in whatever condemnatory terms this may be characterized. The third issue, of course, is whether there is evidence from which a reasonable jury may find that a disputed relationship in fact existed and that the defendant in fact engaged in conduct meeting the second test. To put the same point another way, the law, much as in negligence cases, calls on the factfinder, jury or judge, to decide two kinds of questions. One kind concerns what the defendant did, with what intent, and to what extent his acts caused the plaintiff severe emotional distress. These are questions of historical facts. Assuming that each factual element is shown, the other decision is whether the offensiveness of the defendant's conduct exceeds any reasonable limit of social toleration. This is a judgment of social standards rather than of specific occurrences. It is the kind of judgment for which the law does not demand the same evidentiary basis that is required for reconstructing disputed events. Despite this distinction, however, each issue is subject to judicial decision in the familiar manner when reasonable factfinders could reach only one conclusion on the evidence. As the court stated in Pakos v. Clark, supra : It was for the trial court to determine, in the first instance, whether the defendant's conduct may reasonably be regarded as so extreme and outrageous as to permit recovery. If the minds of reasonable men would not differ on the subject the court was obliged to grant an order of involuntary nonsuit, which in this case was done. 253 Or. at 132, 453 P.2d 682.