Court Opinion

ID: 9521555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:07:27.80222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:54.828200
License: Public Domain

Liacos, J.
(concurring). To a large extent, the result reached by the court in this case is dictated by the court’s decision in Payton v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 556 (1982). The court’s continued insistence on a showing of causally related physical harm in actions alleging negligently inflicted emotional distress dictates the result in this case. The issue has been settled, for the time being, by Payton. It is settled wrongly, I think, for the reasons ably expressed by Justice Wilkins’s dissent in Payton, id. at 578, a view to which I still adhere. One need only point to the facts al*274leged in this case for further proof that the view that negligently inflicted emotional distress is not compensable is plainly wrong. I must join, albeit reluctantly, in the result the court reaches in this case because I am bound by the court’s recent decision.