Opinion ID: 502426
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Emotional Distress Claim

Text: 48 Plaintiffs' complaint alleged that Penthouse knew or should have known that the publication of the girls' photograph in a sexually-explicit men's magazine would offend, embarrass, shock, and outrage the girls and their parents. Although the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is not well-established in Rhode Island, recovery is apparently possible in the debtor-creditor and employer-employee contexts for extreme and outrageous intentional or reckless conduct that causes severe emotional distress. See Elias v. Youngken, 493 A.2d 158, 163-64 (R.I.1985); Champlin v. Washington Trust Co., 478 A.2d 985, 989 (R.I.1984). For the purposes of this appeal, we assume without deciding that Rhode Island would permit recovery outside of these contexts as well. Cf. Russell v. Salve Regina College, 649 F.Supp. 391, 400-01 (D.R.I.1986) (concluding that Rhode Island would extend parameters of intentional infliction tort to university-student relationship). We nevertheless conclude, as did the district court, that plaintiffs have failed to state an emotional distress claim. 49 The Rhode Island Supreme Court, in developing the law governing claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, has relied heavily on the principles stated in Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 46 (1964) and the comments thereto. See Champlin, 478 A.2d at 988-90. We assume, therefore, that Rhode Island would follow the rule stated in comment h to that section: 50 It is for the 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, or whether it is necessarily so. Where reasonable men may differ, it is for the jury, subject to the control of the court, to determine whether, in the particular case, the conduct has been sufficiently extreme and outrageous to result in liability. 51 Restatement Sec. 46, comment h. We note that the court in Champlin appeared to treat the question whether conduct is sufficiently extreme and outrageous as one of law. Champlin, 478 A.2d at 990 (seeing nothing in defendant's brief encounter with plaintiff that could be classified as extreme and outrageous). Cf. Elias, 493 A.2d at 164 (concluding that evidence did not create jury question as to whether defendant's conduct had been extreme and outrageous); Curtis v. Rhode Island Dept. for Children and Their Families, 522 A.2d 203, 208 (R.I.1987) (same). 52 The extreme and outrageous standard is a difficult one to meet. Liability has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Restatement Sec. 46, comment d. We must also recognize that conduct that is intentional or reckless and causes severe emotional distress does not ipso facto constitute extreme and outrageous conduct; as Champlin makes clear, 478 A.2d at 989, these are separate elements that must coincide to impose liability. 53 Accepting as true all of the factual allegations of plaintiffs' complaint, we conclude that those facts do not allege conduct that is sufficiently extreme and outrageous to warrant the imposition of liability. The essence of plaintiffs' complaint is that the mere publication of a photograph of the girls in a sexually explicit magazine was extreme and outrageous. There is nothing false, misleading, suggestive, or inherently offensive or shocking about the photograph itself; plaintiffs merely object to the material that appeared in the neighboring pages. Magazines such as Penthouse are sufficiently a part of the contemporary scene that their reprinting of relatively innocuous news items or photographs that have already appeared in other media simply cannot be characterized as exceeding all possible bounds of decency, atrocious, or utterly intolerable in a civilized society. 6