Court Opinion

ID: 9528515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:41:43.453085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:56.566696
License: Public Domain

UNIS, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court properly granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs claim for reckless infliction of severe emotional distress. I also agree with the majority that present Oregon common law does not recognize negligent infliction of severe emotional distress as an independent cause of action. I disagree, however, with the majority’s disposition of plaintiffs claim for negligent infliction of severe emotional distress. This court exercised its discretionary power to grant review in this case to determine whether to extend common law tort liability to protect Oregon citizens from negligently inflicted severe emotional distress, without any accompanying actual or threatened physical harm or any injury to another legally protected interest. Yet, today this court declines to determine that issue, because it continues to believe that its common law authority to create or recognize new rules of law based on policy is dependent on an affirmative showing on the record of one or more of three premises set forth in G.L. v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc., 306 Or 54, 59, 757 P2d 1347 (1988). 312 Or at 26.
*29I explained in my dissent in Keltner v. Washington County, 310 Or 499, 510-13, 800 P2d 752 (1990) (Unis, J., dissenting), my deep belief that this court should remove itself from its self-imposed “shackles” of the three-premise approach of G.L. v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc., supra. That approach rejects competing policy methodology injudi-cial lawmaking and thereby restricts this court’s common law authority to articulate and justify rules of law based on policy. There is no need to repeat that discussion here. A recent article by former Chief Justice Kenneth J. O’Connell persuasively explains why this “court’s edict of judicial restraint cannot be justified upon either pragmatic or theoretical grounds, and that the court’s adherence to its own proscription will tend not only to distort its opinions but, if strictly applied, also to vitiate the common-law tradition of judicial lawmaking.” O’Connell, Oregon’s Common-Law Tradition: An Endangered Species, 27 Willamette L Rev 197 (1991). See also Note, Oregon’s Hostility to Policy Arguments: Heino v. Harper and the Abolition of Interspousal Immunity, 68 Or L Rev 197 (1989).
From the vesting of power in this court on August 14, 1848,1 until the last decade — over 130 years — this court recognized and exercised its authority to formulate common law rules or doctrine. In Nees v. Hocks, 272 Or 210, 215, 536 P2d 512 (1975), in which the common law tort of wrongful discharge was created, Justice Denecke, speaking for a unanimous court, said:
“This court has not felt unduly restricted by the boundaries of pre-existing common-law remedies. We have not hesitated to create or recognize new torts when confronted with conduct causing injuries which we feel should be compensable.”
Sée also Hinish v. Meier & Frank Co., 166 Or 482, 113 P2d 438,138 ALR1 (1941) (court unanimously recognized a cause of action for damages suffered due to an intentional invasion of the plaintiffs right of privacy); Pakos v. Clark, 253 Or 113, 453 P2d 682 (1969) (tort of “outrageous conduct” (i.e., intentional infliction of emotional distress2) recognized).
*30This court affirms a person’s right to be free from severe emotional distress by recognizing (through its exercise of its common law authority to create or recognize new torts) the common law tort of intentional infliction of severe emotional distress, see, e.g. Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., Inc., 301 Or 117, 122-24, 719 P2d 854 (1986); Hall v. May Dept. Stores Co., 292 Or 131, 637 P2d 126 (1981); the tort of reckless infliction of severe emotional distress under certain circumstances, see Norwest v. Presbyterian Intercommunity Hosp., 293 Or 543, 569, 652 P2d 318 (1982); and the award of damages in connection with some other established tort.3
A growing number of jurisdictions in the United States recognize and protect a person’s right to be free from negligently inflicted severe emotional distress without requiring either physical injury or an independent underlying tort. Keeton, Dobbs, Keeton & Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Torts 365, § 54 (5th ed 1984). I believe that this court should join those jurisdictions and recognize negligent infliction of severe emotional distress as an independent cause of action. In my view, psychic well-being is entitled to as much legal protection as physical well-being. The right to be free from severe emotional distress should not depend on whether the distress was intentionally, recklessly or negligently inflicted. Under present Oregon law, we allow a finder of fact to judge the validity of a claim for intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. The finder of fact does so by evaluating the quality and genuineness of proof and by relying on modern medical technology for proof of the cause, severity of the emotional distress, and the ability of the court and jury to weed out dishonest claims. Yet, we do not allow a factfinder to make such a resolution if the severe emotional distress is negligently inflicted, unless the emotional injury is accompanied by an actual or threatened physical harm or an injury to another legally protected interest.
Fear of imaginary or false claims is often cited as a primary reason for the “physical injury” requirement. *31See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 436A, comment b (1965). Apart from some quite untenable notions of causal connection, the theory appears to be that the “bodily injury” affords the desired guarantee that the mental disturbance is genuine. Keeton, Dobbs, Keeton & Owen, supra, at 363-64, § 54. The distinction between physical and psychological injury, however, is artificial and arbitrary. One can imagine readily the harsh and arbitrary effects of the “physical injury” requirement. If an automobile careens off the road as a result of the negligence of its driver and by barely missing a party causes that party to suffer a severe psychological trauma, there would be no recovery under present Oregon law. If the side mirror of that same automobile brushed the party’s arm, slightly scratching the skin, the party could then recover damages.
Another stated reason for the “physical injury” requirement is the concern that allowing recovery for solely emotional injury would result in an avalanche of new litigation. There is a two-fold response to this argument. First, there is insufficient proof that such a result has occurred in jurisdictions that have abandoned the “physical injury” rule. Second, it is a fundamental concept of our judicial system that a judicial forum be available for vindication of citizens’ rights.
As stated by Keeton, Dobbs, Keeton & Owen, supra, at 360, § 54:
“Mental suffering is no more difficult to estimate in financial terms, and no less a real injury, than ‘physical pain’; it is not an independent intervening cause, but a thing brought about by the defendant’s negligence itself, and its consequences may follow in unbroken sequence from that negligence; and while it may be true that its consequences are seldom very serious unless there is some predisposing physical condition, the law is not for the protection of the physically sound alone. It is the business of the courts to make precedent where a wrong calls for redress, even if lawsuits must be multipled; and there long has been precedent enough, and no great increase in litigation has been observed.”
The requirement that a plaintiff must prove that he or she suffered severe emotional distress provides a level of protection from imaginary or false claims. Another alternative to protect against unfounded claims would be to require *32the plaintiff to prove the element of severe emotional distress by clear and convincing evidence.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.4

 See An Act in Relation to the Judiciary, Act of Congress August 14,1848,1 Or 7.

 As the majority states: “This court has disapproved the label ‘outrageous conduct,’ preferring the phrase ‘intentional infliction of severe emotional distress.’ *30Patton v. J. C. Penney Co., Inc., 301 Or 117, 119, 719 P2d 854 (1986); Humphers v. First Interstate Bank of Oregon, 298 Or 706, 709 n 1, 696 P2d527 (1985).” 312 Or at 22 n 3.

 For example, once the underlying cause of action for invasion of right of privacy is established, damages for mental suffering may be awarded.

 In light of the majority’s present determined and — in my view — inappropriate restraint of its common-law judicial lawmaking authority, a litigant, advocating a new common law remedy (nonstatutoiy rule or doctrine) or a modification thereof, is well advised to demonstrate affirmatively on the record one or more of the three premises recognized by G.L. v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc., 306 Or 54, 59, 757 P2d 1347 (1988), as justifying this court’s reconsideration of the proposed remedy or proposed modification.