Court Opinion

ID: 9546914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:37:56.272757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:01.925256
License: Public Domain

DOOLIN, Justice,
concurring specially.
I write specially to address the issues of the jurisdiction of the courts in such cases and to expand on the majority’s findings as to Goodwin’s action for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Insurer argues the district court did not have jurisdiction to address the issues in this case because the Workers’ Compensation Court has exclusive jurisdiction over the matter. This assessment is incorrect. This cause of action, although alleged to arise from the handling of claims under the Workers’ Compensation Act, is not for damages resulting from a work-related injury, but for alleged damages resulting from the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The alleged cause of action did not arise until after Goodwin had made his claim and had received all the remedies provided by the Act. After that recovery, and after all proceedings in the Workers’ Compensation Court were final, Goodwin sought to recover damages for events which he claims occurred following the final award and which, he alleges, amount to intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Because the district court has jurisdiction to hear causes of action in tort,1 Goodwin *437was correct in not filing this action in the Workers’ Compensation Court, which is a court of limited jurisdiction.2
Though correctly filed in the district court this tort action was also correctly subjected to summary adjudication based on the trial court’s evaluation of the case as a matter of law. Goodwin asserts he is entitled to damages because insurer filed an appeal of his compensation award with no reasonable anticipation of success, and that prosecuting the appeal without even bothering to file a brief was nothing less than a design by insurer to inflict emotional suffering upon him. I would find that this set of allegations, without more, does not make out the elements of the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In Breeden v. League Services Corp.,3 this Court adopted the Restatement Second’s approach to the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress.4 Breeden further established the role of courts and of juries in such cases. In the first instance, the court must determine whether defendant’s conduct “may reasonably be regarded as so extreme and outrageous as to permit recovery, or whether it is necessarily so.”5
Where under the facts before the trial court, reasonable persons may differ as to whether the conduct is outrageous, it is for the jury, under proper supervision of the trial court, to determine whether the conduct is so outrageous and extreme as to permit recovery.6 But in discharge of its duties the trial court must make an initial determination as to whether, as a matter of law, severe emotional distress can be found.7
According to Restatement Second, Section 46, the rule permitting recovery only applies where emotional distress has in fact occurred, and where it is severe. Proof of outrageous conduct alone is therefore, not sufficient to allow recovery.8
Goodwin has simply not alleged sufficient facts to support submitting the case to a jury for reconsideration. Reasonable minds could not differ that insurer’s conduct did not rise to the level of outrageousness needed to prove a cause of action. To hold otherwise might unintentionally endow the claimant’s bar in compensation cases with a weapon which might be used to gain unfair advantage in their contests with compensation insurers, and this we do not wish to do.

. 85 O.S.1981, § 1.2. F.

. 575 P.2d 1374 (Okl.1978).

. Section 46, Restatement of Torts (Second), 1965, provides in part:
46. Outrageous Conduct Causing Emotional Distress
(1) One who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the other results from it, for such bodily harm.
Comment d. to that section provides in part:
... 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 grounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Generally, the case is one in which the recitation of the facts to the average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim, "outrageous!” ...
See Breeden v. League Services, supra, at 1376, where this court held trial court’s granting summary judgment for defendant-creditor was proper. This, despite the fact that defendant’s agent had allegedly harassed debtor by saying to her, "You damned deadbeat. You Goddamed liar. And you are a deadbeat.”

. Id. at 1377.

. Id.

. Id.

. For a detailed analysis of the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, see Eddy v. Brown, 715 P.2d 74 (Okl.1986); Chandler v. Denton, 741 P.2d 855 (Okl.1987); Dean v. Chapman, 556 P.2d 257 (Okl.1976); and Munley v. I.S.C. Financial House, Inc., 584 P.2d 1336 (Okl.1978).