Opinion ID: 1385913
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Disproportionate culpability.

Text: Defendants argue that if the reasoning and rule of Thing v. La Chusa, supra, 48 Cal.3d 644, 667-668, and Ochoa v. Superior Court (1985) 39 Cal.3d 159, 165, footnote 6 [216 Cal. Rptr. 661, 703 P.2d 1], limiting recovery for negligent infliction of emotional distress to those who contemporaneously observe both the negligent act and the injury it causes is not applied to the claims of these plaintiffs, then they will suffer liability that is out of all proportion to their culpability. [26] Those cases did distinguish a plaintiff whose emotional distress was engendered by witnessing serious injury to a close relative from one who suffered emotional distress on learning of the injury from another person. The defendants in those cases had no preexisting duty to the plaintiff, however. Plaintiffs here do not seek relief on the basis of witnessing the injury of another, but for an injury caused by the breach of a duty owed directly to each plaintiff. The Thing v. La Chusa limitation on Dillon v. Legg ( supra, 68 Cal.2d 728) recovery is not appropriate for that reason. Moreover, because misconduct of the type alleged here โ mistreatment of human remains by a crematory โ while likely to cause severe emotional distress, would rarely, if ever, take place within the immediate presence and view of the foreseeable victims, providers of funeral-related services would avoid liability for injuries caused by their outrageous conduct if a similar limitation were applied. No public policy supports the immunity defendants seek. Defendants' attempt to analogize the emotional distress injuries alleged here to that in issue in Thing v. La Chusa, supra , and Ochoa v. Superior Court, supra, 39 Cal.3d 159, also fails for other reasons. In Thing v. La Chusa, supra , we restricted recovery to close relatives who are percipient witnesses to the negligent injury of the tortfeasor's immediate victim in order to avoid unlimited liability out of all proportion to the culpability of the negligent actor, and in recognition that the percipient witness usually suffers an emotional impact beyond that suffered whenever one learns from another of the death or injury of a loved one. ( Thing v. La Chusa, supra, 48 Cal.3d 644, 667.) Here, by contrast, the emotional injury is suffered by persons for whom the defendants have undertaken to provide a service, the very purpose of which is to alleviate existing and avoid future emotional distress arising from the death. The concerns which justified the restrictions that defendants' urge us to extend to this case are not present. The potential plaintiffs are limited to those for whom defendants performed a service. The defendants' potential liability is not out of proportion to their conduct, and it is not based simply on the type of emotional distress the plaintiffs could be anticipated to suffer as a result of the death of a loved one. Thus, permitting these victims to recover for the emotional distress they suffer does not threaten, as was the case in Thing v. La Chusa , unlimited liability for conduct that is simply negligent. Intentional and outrageous conduct on the part of the crematory defendants, of which the mortuary and Carolina defendants knew or should have known, is alleged. The class of potential plaintiffs we approve here is limited in number since it encompasses only those close relatives who were aware both of the death of a loved one and the nature of the funeral-related services that were to be performed on their behalf. Defendants will not be liable, as they fear, to persons not yet born when the misconduct occurred, or who had no knowledge that their relative had died until they learned of the mistreatment of the remains. They will not be liable to other family members who are upset by the type of services for which the contracting party arranged. Nor is the number of potential plaintiffs significant. Defendants' purported liability to the relatives of more than 16,000 decedents is not a factor arising from a failure to narrow the class of potential plaintiffs. Rather, it is a factor of the number of decedents whose remains defendants allegedly mistreated.