Opinion ID: 2162204
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: Indirect Victim

Text: [¶ 13] Champagne next contends that she was an indirect victim of the Defendants' alleged negligence, and that her notices of claim therefore stated viable causes of action for NIED. In order for a bystander to recover for emotional distress proximately caused by a defendant's negligence toward another person, the bystander must demonstrate that she was present at the scene of the accident; that she suffered serious mental distress as a result of contemporaneously perceiving the accident; and that she was closely related to the victim. See Nelson, 677 A.2d at 548; Cameron, 610 A.2d at 283-84 (rejecting a pure foreseeability test and explaining that circumscribed duty of care in the context of claims made by bystanders for psychic injury reflects policy considerations). [¶ 14] It is undisputed that Champagne did not witness Makita being nursed by the wrong mother and that she did not learn about the incident until about one hour afterward. In these circumstances, Champagne has not established a cause of action for NIED as a bystander to the Defendants' alleged negligence. Compare, e.g., Cameron, 610 A.2d at 284-85 (holding that parents who were not at scene of son's car accident but who later witnessed his pain and suffering at the hospital cannot recover damages for NIED from negligent tortfeasor) with Culbert, 444 A.2d at 438 (vacating dismissal of NIED claim where mother observed her child choking on a foreign object in baby food manufactured by defendant).