Court Opinion

ID: 9762459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:24:36.826177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:34.754948
License: Public Domain

HIGGINS, Judge,
dissenting.
With due respect, I find myself in dissent for the reasons that follow.
Rachel Asaro’s five-year-old son underwent heart surgery to remove a subaortic fibrous ring. The operating physician reported that all of the ring was removed when in fact some of it remained. The son experienced fainting, pain and other serious difficulties for over a year as a result of the presence of the ring portion. Despite these problems, physicians insisted that all was well. In her pleadings Rachel Asaro alleges she was damaged because defendants denied her son proper treatment in reliance on the incorrect report and negligently interpreted tests, causing her frustration and emotional distress.
Rachel Asaro’s petition was dismissed by the trial court on the ground of failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action, the sole question is whether plaintiff’s petition states a cause of action under the applicable law. Shapiro v. Columbia Union National Bank and Trust Co., 576 S.W.2d 310, 312 (Mo. banc 1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 831, 100 S.Ct. 60, 62 L.Ed.2d 40 (1979). A reviewing court accepts as true the facts properly pleaded, gives the averments a liberal construction, and makes those reasonable inferences fairly deductible from the facts stated. Stiffelman v. Abrams, 655 S.W.2d 522 (Mo. banc 1983); Concerned Parents v. Caruthersville School District, 548 S.W.2d 554 (Mo. banc 1977).
The majority opinion introduces its denial of Rachel Asaro’s day in court by the assertion that this is a case of first impression. I submit this is not a true case of first impression. As recognized by the majority: “In Bass v. Nooney, 646 S.W.2d 765 (Mo. banc 1983), this Court abrogated the impact rule and permitted a plaintiff to recover for emotional distress without first showing a contemporaneous traumatic physical injury.” The Court’s footnoted restraint from digressing “to discuss the extensive debate and differing rules” which *601flow from so-called “bystander” cases, is in no way a denial of the Bass rule in determining whether this plaintiff stated a case in her pleading. In pronouncing its rule this Court made no distinction with respect to plaintiffs “permitted to recover for emotional distress.” Bass at 772-73. The majority, however, proceeds from footnote 3 to adopt a premise that Bass is not authority for Asaro’s cause of action. I submit this premise is unjustified.
The majority takes the quotation from the Restatement in Bass to be a wholesale adoption of Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 313. This is not so. Notwithstanding the majority’s view of the Restatement, Bass, after a “painstaking review of this whole subject,” held that a plaintiff will be permitted to recover for emotional distress provided: “(1) the defendant should have realized that his conduct involved an unreasonable risk of causing the distress; and (2) the emotional distress or mental injury must be medically diagnosable and must be of sufficient severity so as to be medically significant.” Id. at 772-73. Bass further noted that “the evolution of the law on this subject did not stop with the adoption of the rules set forth in the Restatement.” Id. at 771. Accordingly, it should not be said that the pronouncement of Bass is not available to Rachel Asaro’s case.
In her petition, Rachel Asaro alleged she underwent “severe emotional stress and depression, medically diagnosable and significant”, and that “[a]ll defendants should have realized that their conduct ... involved an unreasonable risk of causing emotional distress or mental injury to Plaintiff.” Accordingly, her petition survives a motion to dismiss under the tests of Shapiro, Stiffelman and Concerned Parents because it satisfies the requirements of Bass.
The majority introduces against this pleader a further limitation or requirement of “zone of danger”; it seeks authority in conflicting discussions from New York and California. No such requirement is made in Bass; it should not now be engrafted on the Bass rule to defeat plaintiff Asaro’s petition. The majority concedes that “criticism has been leveled against the zone of danger rule as being arbitrary or ... hopelessly artificial” — and indeed it is. Yet the majority concludes that no duty is owed by the doctor to the distressed mother because she was not physically threatened by the doctor or placed in “fear of physical injury to ... her own person.” By way of contrast see Martinez v. Long Island Jewish Hillside Medical Center, 512 N.E.2d 538, 539, 70 N.Y.2d 697, 518 N.Y.S.2d 955, 956 (1978), where the medical care providers negligently gave plaintiff-mother incorrect information concerning her unborn child, as a result of which she decided on an abortion. This caused her emotional distress, as it was against her religious beliefs.
As stated by the court at 512 N.E.2d 538-9, 518 N.Y.S.2d at 956-7:
Plaintiff does not seek to recover for consequential emotional harm caused by observing or learning of injury or death to a third person.... On the contrary, her mental anguish and depression are the direct result of defendants’ breach of a duty owed directly to her in giving her erroneous advice on which she affirmatively acted in deciding to have the abortion. The emotional distress for which she seeks recovery does not derive from what happened to the fetus; it derives from the psychological injury directly caused by her agreeing to an act which, as the jury found, was contrary to her firmly held beliefs.
The majority’s limiting concept, now re-injected into the law in Missouri, not only produces an indefensible result in the Asa-ro case, but immediately suggests the kind of results that can flow from this “hopelessly artificial” standard. For example, it would bar a claim by a husband present in the delivery room when his wife gives birth and the attending physician commits a blunder apparent to all, compounded by remarks to his nurse that dire consequences to the child and mother will result. The father, although not physically threatened, faints and suffers emotional and physical damage. The majority denies possible application of Bass and “artificially” denies any “duty” of the doctor to this *602father, thus denying any relief for his injury under the law articulated in Bass.
Prior to Bass in Todd v. Goostree, 493 S.W.2d 411 (Mo.App.1973), followed and implemented, 528 S.W.2d 470 (Mo.App.1975), the court held that a workers’ compensation claimant who suffered emotional shock when he discovered beneath the wheels of his truck the crushed body of a friend and coworker was injured within the definition provided by the workers’ compensation scheme. The driver of the truck was in no danger of being run over nor were the driver and victim related; nevertheless, the court found the driver's emotional distress to be a compensable injury. I submit this ease is instructive with respect to the treatment of “bystander” or third-party claims. See also Jeannelle v. Thompson Medical Company, Inc., 613 F.Supp. 346 (E.D.Mo.1985) (Bass applied to a “bystander” claim for emotional distress).
I would reverse the judgment of dismissal and remand this ease for reinstatement of plaintiff’s petition.