Opinion ID: 1908103
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Counterclaim Fifteen: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

Text: The trial court determined that counterclaim fifteen was not warranted by existing law at the time it was filed. When Mrs. Meadows filed her counterclaim, the controlling precedent on negligent infliction of emotional distress was Williams v. Baker, 572 A.2d 1062 (D.C.1990) (en banc). There, [w]e h[e]ld that one may recover for emotional distress caused by witnessing injury to an immediate family member only if the claimant was in the zone of physical danger and as a result feared for his or her own safety. Id. at 1064 (footnote omitted). However, we also made clear that: This appeal does not present the issue, and accordingly we take no position here on whether mental distress, to be compensable, must result in physical injury, but we share the view of the New York Court of Appeals that in furtherance of the policy of excluding recovery for trifling distress, the claimed distress must be serious and verifiable. Id. at 1068 (internal quotations and citation omitted). While Mrs. Meadows' counterclaim was pending, this court decided Cauman v. George Washington Univ., 630 A.2d 1104 (D.C.1993), a case also handled by Mrs. Meadows' counsel. We applied Williams, supra, in Cauman and said: [T]he plaintiff must be `physically endangered as a result of the defendant's alleged negligence' in order to recover. Id. at 1106 (quoting Williams, supra, 572 A.2d at 1073). In Williams, `the plaintiff mother was not physically endangered as a result of the defendant's alleged negligence' in failing to diagnose properly her son's medical condition, and therefore... she could not recover on a theory of negligent infliction of emotional distress. Id. at 1107 (quoting Williams, supra, 572 A.2d at 1073). In deciding Cauman, we recognized that appellants [were] asking us to broaden the reach of Williams.  Id. at 1107. However, we declined to do so. Mrs. Meadows and her counsel argued that the trial court relied on Cauman in imposing sanctions even though that case had not been decided at the time the counterclaim was filed. However, the trial court declared that its February 14 order was based on Williams, not Cauman. Under Williams, said the trial court, there were no facts in this case showing [Mrs. Meadows] was (1) physically injured or (2) that [the bank's] negligent conduct caused her to fear for her safety and that she was within the zone of physical danger. Moreover, Mrs. Meadows and her counsel made no argument for an extension or modification of the law.  (emphasis supplied). We review counterclaim fifteen at the time it was filed. Williams did not decide the issue as to whether to be compensable, emotional distress must result from physical injury. However, we leaned toward the requirement imposed by the New York Court of Appeals, that the claimed distress [had to] be serious and verifiable. Williams, supra, 572 A.2d at 1068 (internal quotations and citation omitted). Thus, when Mrs. Meadows filed her counterclaim fifteen, we did not require an actual physical injury. Nor had we decided issues concerning non-spectator plaintiffs. We did say that the claimant had to be in the zone of physical danger, but not until Cauman, where we acknowledged Cauman's attempt to broaden the reach of Williams, did we explicitly state that the claimant had to be physically endangered as a result of defendant's negligence. Although the record on appeal in this case does not reflect an express argument by Mrs. Meadows and her counsel for an extension or modification of Williams, nonetheless that argument may be inferred from the record before us. For this reason, we conclude that sanctions were not permissibly imposed for counterclaim fifteen, because the filing of the counterclaim was warranted by a good faith argument for the modification or extension of Williams.