Court Opinion

ID: 9469096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:32:00.435089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:13.129499
License: Public Domain

ESCHBACH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The majority’s treatment of the question of intentional infliction of emotional distress is a vast departure from the body of substantive Illinois law which we are obli*863gated to follow in this diversity action. The complaint is insufficient under Illinois law for two independent reasons. First, the conduct of which the defendants are accused was not “outrageous,” as that term is defined in the Illinois cases. Second, the complaint fails to allege the requisite degree of scienter. I therefore respectfully dissent from the reversal of the district court’s order granting defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Plaintiff alleges that the defendants terminated her husband’s highly successful general agency with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in retaliation for plaintiff’s exercise of guaranteed loan privileges conferred by life insurance policies issued to her by Massachusetts Mutual. Although the complaint refers to a policy of employing threats and coercion to discourage policy holders from exercising their guaranteed loan privileges, the sole conduct that is alleged to be tortious as to plaintiff is the retaliatory termination of her husband’s insurance agency.
I do not share the majority’s perception of the manner in which the district court disposed of this allegation. The district court did not hold that the conduct alleged could never state a claim under the theory presented. The district court held that the retaliatory termination in question was not actionable standing alone, nor was it actionable in the context of all the other allegations in the complaint. An analysis of the Illinois cases makes it clear that this was the correct method of assessing the challenged conduct.
The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress was first recognized in Illinois in Knierim v. Izzo, 22 Ill.2d 73, 174 N.E.2d 157 (1961). The essentiál elements of this cause of action are (1) extreme and outrageous conduct, (2) severe emotional distress, and (3) conduct from which the defendant knows severe distress is certain or substantially certain to flow. Public Finance Corporation v. Davis, 66 U1.2d 85, 89-90, 4 Ill.Dec. 652, 654, 360 N.E.2d 765, 767 (1976).
In Knierim, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that emotional well-being is worthy of judicial protection, but recognized that it is frequently difficult to calculate the severity of emotional distress. See 22 Ill.2d at 84-85, 174 N.E.2d at 162-63. It was therefore necessary to posit some general pleading standards so as to screen out cases in which the emotional distress calculus would be purely conjectural. The Knierim court sought to overcome the problem of measuring the victim’s emotional distress by making the defendant’s conduct the paramount issue:
The unwarranted intrusion must be calculated to cause ‘severe emotional distress’ to a person of ordinary sensibilities, in the absence of special knowledge or notice. There is no inclination to include all instances of mere vulgarities, obviously intended as meaningless abusive expressions. ******
We are confident, however, that the trial judges in this State will not permit litigation to enter the field of trivialities and mere bad manners.
22 Ill.2d at 86-87, 174 N.E.2d at 163-64 (citation omitted).
Under Knierim and its progeny, there are two distinct variants of outrageous conduct which, if properly alleged and proven, may support recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The first variant involves conduct that is abhorrent to the most fundamental societal norms, and has been described as follows:
[T]he conduct must be extreme and outrageous. The liability clearly does not extend to mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions or trivialities. “It has not been enough that the defendant has acted with an intent which is tortious or even criminal, or that he has intended to inflict emotional distress, or even that his conduct has been characterized by ‘malice,’ or a degree of aggravation which would entitle the plaintiff to punitive damages for another tort. Liability has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous *864in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency ----”
Public Finance Corporation v. Davis, 66 Ill.2d 85, 89-90, 4 Ill.Dec. 652, 654, 360 N.E.2d 765, 767 (1976) (quoting comment d to § 46 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts). The paradigm of this variant is Knierim, where a widow sued her husband’s murderer for the extreme anguish that resulted from (1) the defendant’s threat to her that he would murder her husband and (2) the tragic fulfillment of this threat. The salient characteristic of the cases in this category is that they involve conduct so outrageous, even when viewed in the abstract, that a finding of severe emotional distress is entirely reasonable, not merely conjectural. See, e.g., Knierim, supra; Sherman v. Field Clinic, 74 Ill.App.3d 21, 29 Ill.Dec. 597, 392 N.E.2d 154 (1979) (in pursuing collection of a debt, defendant threatened members of debtor’s family and made persistent use of profane, obscene and abusive language).
The second variant of actionable conduct involves situations in which the defendant had prior knowledge that the victim was particularly vulnerable to the challenged conduct. The “special knowledge or notice” exception was expressly anticipated in Knierim, see 22 Ill.2d at 86, 174 N.E.2d at 163. This second variant is illustrated by Eckenrode v. Life of America Insurance Company, 470 F.2d 1 (7th Cir. 1972), where an insurance company was accused of using economic coercion to induce a policyholder in dire financial straits to compromise a meritorious insurance claim. In such cases, the factual analysis is expanded to consider (1) the gravity of the conduct, (2) the emotional vulnerability of the victim, and (3) the defendant’s knowledge of the victim’s vulnerable condition. As in the case of Knierim-type conduct, if these three elements are alleged, they provide an appropriate predicate for a finding of severe emotional distress.
Applying either of the two standards of actionable conduct discussed above, it is clear that plaintiff has failed to allege that defendants’ conduct was sufficiently “outrageous.” In this case, unlike Knierim, the conduct alleged did not exceed all possible bounds of decency and, unlike Sherman, it did not involve a persistent pattern of abuse and harassment. Viewed objectively, and in the abstract, the alleged retaliatory termination of plaintiff’s husband’s insurance agency falls far short of violating any fundamental societal prohibitions.
Nor is there any indication that special circumstances rendered the conduct extremely oppressive. Plaintiff has not alleged that she was particularly vulnerable to the conduct. Indeed, one of the complaint’s most glaring deficiencies is its failure to allege any objective manifestations of emotional distress; there is merely a conclusory assertion that she sustained emotional distress.
Regardless of whether the conduct in question is considered in the abstract or in the context of all the other allegations, “it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of [her] claim which would entitle [her] to relief.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).
Finally, the complaint harbors an additional, equally dispositive flaw. To satisfy Knierim and Public Finance, there must be an allegation that defendants’ conduct was such that it was certain or substantially certain to produce severe distress. Plaintiff’s complaint merely alleges that the termination of her husband’s insurance agency was performed with the intent, or with reckless disregard of the probability of causing “emotional distress.” Thus, the allegation as to defendants’ state of mind is clearly insufficient.
Accordingly, although I concur with the majority in affirming the dismissal as to defendants Martin, Ingram, and Kessler, for the reasons given above, I would affirm the dismissal as to the other defendants as well.