Court Opinion

ID: 9631377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:36:05.451257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:52.972100
License: Public Domain

RIGGS, J.,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that plaintiff has stated a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, but I disagree with its failure to recognize that there is a special relationship between employer and employee that affects the intent element of that tort. Unlike the majority, I would hold that plaintiff has also stated a claim for intentional interference with an economic relationship. I therefore concur on the emotional distress claim, but I would reverse on the interference with an economic relationship claim. As does the majority, I will first discuss the claim for intentional interference with an economic relationship.
The majority holds that plaintiff did not allege an injury to his employment contract, because he did not allege that Hankins’ conduct prevented him from receiving any benefit of that contract. 100 Or App at 468. However, plaintiff did allege that Hankins’ actions caused him stress, as a result of which he took 280.5 hours of sick leave. If plaintiff had not had that sick leave accrued, he would have lost wages. The sick leave was part of his contractual compensation for his services, Harryman v. Roseburg Fire Dist., 244 Or 631, 420 P2d 51 *473(1966), and it will not be available again if plaintiff needs it. Performance of his employment contract, therefore, will not only be more difficult as a direct result of Hankins’ intentional interference with it; it will also be less valuable. See American Sanitary Service v. Walker, 276 Or 389, 394, 554 P2d 1010 (1976). That is sufficient, under the majority’s reasoning and the cases that it cites, to state a claim for intentional interference with plaintiffs contractual relationship with PCC.
I turn to plaintiffs claim for intentional infliction of mental distress. The Supreme Court has described the elements of that tort, in language that the majority quotes:
“First, ordinarily a plaintiff must allege that a defendant intended to inflict severe mental or emotional distress. It is not enough that [the defendant] intentionally acted in a way that causes such distress. Second, a defendant’s act must in fact cause a plaintiff severe mental or emotional distress. Third, a defendant’s actions must consist of ‘some extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct’ or the actions must exceed ‘any reasonable limit of social toleration.’ Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, 292 Or 131, 135, 137, 637 P2d 126 (1981).” Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., 301 Or 117, 122, 719 P2d 854 (1986). (Emphasis supplied.)
I agree with the majority that plaintiff has alleged the second and third elements of the tort. In addition, I agree that it is possible to read his complaint as also alleging that Hankins specifically intended to inflict severe mental or emotional distress. I disagree, however, with the majority’s refusal to consider plaintiffs assertion that “employment creates a special relationship that lowers the requisite level of intent.” 100 Or App at 469. If plaintiff is correct, as I believe that he is, he should not have to prove at trial the level of intent that the majority requires.
In Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., supra, the Supreme Court said that ordinarily the plaintiff must allege that the defendant intended to inflict distress. It did not discuss the issue any further, because it held that the defendant’s alleged conduct was not so extraordinary as to subject it to liability. Therefore, it did not have to consider what mental state was necessary to prove the tort. However, both we and the Supreme Court had previously done so.
In Bodewig v. K-Mart, Inc., 54 Or App 480, 635 P2d *474657 (1981), rev den 292 Or 450 (1982), we held that an employer and employee are in a special relationship
“based on which liability may be imposed if [the employer’s] conduct, though not deliberately aimed at causing emotional distress, was such that a jury might find it to be beyond the limits of social toleration and reckless of the predictable effects on [the] plaintiff.” 54 Or App at 486.
A month after that decision, the Supreme Court considered the issue at greater length in Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, supra. After discussing previous cases, it stated that the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant in an intentional infliction of emotional distress case may be one that “imposes on the defendant a greater obligation to refrain from subjecting the victim to abuse, fright, or shock than would be true in arm’s-length encounters among strangers.” Such a relationship may affect both the mental element necessary to impose liability and the determination of whether the defendant’s conduct is so offensive as to cross the threshold of potential liability. 292 Or at 137. After discussing earlier decisions, the court concluded that “the duty to refrain from abusive behavior in the employment relationship comes closer to that of the physician toward a patient * * * than to that of * * * police officers toward a citizen not in custody and free to terminate the encounter[.]” 292 Or at 138. It then evaluated the evidence in the case before it on the assumption that the plaintiff could prove her case by showing that the employer acted in reckless disregard of the distress inflicted.1
Although the majority relies on the same portion of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., supra, as I do, it does not give sufficient weight to the court’s use of “ordinarily” in describing what a plaintiff must allege or to its reliance on Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, supra, for the elements of the tort. Those factors convince me that the court did not intend to modify Hall and that, under Hall, plaintiff may prove the intent element of his claim for intentional *475infliction of emotional distress by showing that Hankins intentionally engaged in conduct with reckless disregard for the consequences of his conduct on plaintiff.2 That is what plaintiff has pled.
I concur in the reversal of the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim and dissent from the affirmance of the intentional interference with an economic relationship claim.

 In Hall, the evidence supported a finding that the defendant had intentionally subjected the plaintiff to severe mental and emotional distress as a cold-blooded tactic of interrogation. Because the Supreme Court did not hold that the evidence supported a finding that the defendant did so with the intent of causing that distress, but did hold that the evidence was sufficient to support the plaintiffs claim, it necessarily accepted the plaintiffs position that the defendant’s recklessness as to the effects of its actions was sufficient. 292 Or at 139-142.

 In Sheets v. Knight, 308 Or 220, 236, 779 P2d 1000 (1989), the Supreme Court held that an employee had failed to state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, because he did not allege that the defendants intended to cause severe emotional distress and “[i]t is insufficient merely to allege that the defendant acted in a way that caused severe emotional distress.” The court did not discuss its holding in Hall v. The May Dept. Stores, supra, let alone expressly overrule it. The plaintiff in Sheets did not allege that the defendants acted with reckless disregard of the effect of their actions on him, and that failure in itself made the pleading defective under the Hall standard. I would not hold that the court intended, by dictum in Sheets, to withdraw from the position that it took in Hall after full consideration.