Opinion ID: 1351755
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Direct Victim.

Text: Our cases have pinpointed the source of the duty of care to support a claim by a direct victim for recovery of emotional distress from negligent conduct of a defendant to be the relationship between the parties. [1] Oswald, 453 N.W.2d at 639. The relationship between the parties is a recognized source of a duty of care. Sankey v. Richenberger, 456 N.W.2d 206, 209 (Iowa 1990). However, the relationship requires more than an emotional tie between the parties. Millington, 532 N.W.2d at 793. Instead, we have required the existence of a contractual relationship between the parties involving acts that `carry with them deeply emotional responses in the event of breach.' Lawrence, 534 N.W.2d at 421 (quoting Oswald, 453 N.W.2d at 639). This limitation is essentially derived from the general rule that emotional damages cannot arise from the breach of every protected interest, but only from those of sufficient importance as a matter of policy to merit protection from emotional impact. Hilt v. Bernstein, 75 Or.App. 502, 707 P.2d 88, 95 (1985). The requirement of such a relationship supports the imposition of liability separate and independent from the general duty of care applicable in all negligent actions to avoid foreseeable risks of harm. The rationale for such an independent duty of care has been explained by one leading scholar: When the defendant owes an independent duty of care to the plaintiff, there is no risk of unlimited liability to an unlimited number of people. Liability turns solely on the relationships accepted by the defendant, usually under a contractual arrangement. Consequently, the duty extends only to those for whom the contract was made. When the defendant contracts to provide services for childbirth, he is on notice that negligent acts will likely cause emotional harm. Dobbs, The Law of Torts § 312, at 849. Liability for emotional distress is imposed for negligence independent of intent or physical injury when the act negligently performed is `so coupled with matters of mental concern or solicitude, or with feelings of the party to whom the duty is owed, that a breach of that duty will necessarily or reasonably result in mental anguish or suffering.' Oswald, 453 N.W.2d at 639 (quoting Taylor v. Baptist Med. Ctr., 400 So.2d 369, 374 (Ala. 1981)). This is a standard that must be met to support the essential duty to support a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress to a direct victim. There is no doubt that the relationship between a parent and a child can be exceptionally close and deeply emotional. Moreover, it is the type of relationship that would understandably produce emotional distress if one of the parties to the relationship witnessed serious injury or death to the other. Nevertheless, it is not a relationship that is contractual in nature. Additionally, the act performed in the course of the relationship at issue in this case, the operation of a motor vehicle, is not so coupled with matters of mental concern that the breach of the duty of care in performing the act will necessarily or reasonably result in emotional distress. The claimed emotional distress is simply too far removed from the defendant['s] negligent conduct to support the imposition of a duty of care to avoid inflicting emotional distress. Lawrence, 534 N.W.2d at 423. We refuse to recognize an independent duty of care on a parent to avoid inflicting emotional distress on a passenger child in a motor vehicle for witnessing injuries inflicted on the parent as the result of negligence in the operation of the motor vehicle. It is a circumstance outside the exceptions to the rule against emotional distress absent intentional conduct or physical injury.