Court Opinion

ID: 9775935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:13:22.567322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:32.145406
License: Public Domain

DORSEY, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the analysis of the bystander claim asserted by Jerry Rodriguez. I write separately on Mr. Rodriquez’s right to recover for his emotional distress caused by almost being run over by Guzman’s car. Is he barred from recovery because he was fortunate enough not to be struck by the car?
Texas jurisprudence has long recognized claims in which the plaintiff was not struck by the defendant or by an object put into motion through the defendant’s negligence. Emotional distress caused by the defendant’s negligent act, unaccompanied by a physical impact, is recoverable.
In Hill v. Kimball, 76 Tex. 210, 13 S.W. 59 (1890), the Texas Supreme Court first recognized the principle. A cause of action was allowed by a plaintiff who miscarried as a result of witnessing a violent and bloody assault by the defendant on two others, drawing blood in the assault. The fright that Mrs. Hill received caused her physical injuries. In holding that Mrs. Hill had a cause of action, the court said,
“Of course, since there is no intent to injure Mrs. Hill alleged, it will be a question for the jury to determine whether his conduct, so far as she was concerned, was negligent or not; that is to say, whether, under the circumstances, and with the lights before him, a reasonably prudent man would have anticipated the danger to her or not.”
Id. 13 S.W. at 59. The Hill court was clear that the tort asserted by Mrs. Hill sounded in negligence and was not willful or intentional. Although the assault on the two individuals was willful, the duty to Mrs. Hill was based on the defendant, knowing her delicate condition, attacking the victims in her presence in her yard. It is not an example of allowing for emotional distress with a willful tort. See Sanchez v. Schindler, 651 S.W.2d 249, 258 (Tex.1983) (Pope, C.J., dissenting) (listing cases involving wilful torts).
In 1900, the Supreme Court reached the question again in Gulf, C. & S.F. Ry. v. Hayter, 93 Tex. 239, 54 S.W. 944, 945 (1900). The plaintiff was a passenger on a train that was struck by another train at a crossing. Although two cars were derailed, the plaintiff suffered no bodily injury; only fright and shock. The collision did not knock him from his seat, tear his hands loose from the hold he had taken, nor did it disturb his position any that he could tell. However, it frightened him greatly, which, he asserted, caused disease which resulted in physical pain and mental anguish. The court held, ‘We conclude that where a physical injury results from a fright or other mental shock, caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, the injured person is entitled to recover his damages.” Id.
The Supreme Court again reaffirmed Hill v. Kimball in 1946 in Houston Elec. Co. v. Dorsett, 145 Tex. 95, 194 S.W.2d 546 (1946), a case strikingly similar to the one under consideration. Mrs. Dorsett was almost run over by a bus operated by the defendant *529while crossing a street. The bus narrowly missed her, causing great emotional shock. The court held that it was not necessary that there be a physical impact. After tracing the history of this area of law in Texas and elsewhere, it stated, “[t]he conflict of decisions in the American courts has continued, but the decisions of the Court on this question in the eases of Hill v. Kimball, supra, and Gulf, C. & S.F. Railway Co. v. Hayter, supra, are now supported by a majority of the courts of the States.” The court then cited legal encyclopedia, law review articles, cases, American Law Reports and the Restatement of Torts § 436. Dorsett, 194 S.W.2d at 548.
In Bailey v. American Gen. Ins. Co., 154 Tex. 430, 279 S.W.2d 315, 322 (1955), the plaintiff was on a scaffold that collapsed. His coworker on the scaffold fell eight floors to his death. Bailey became entangled in the scaffold and did not fall. He had minor bruises and a rope burn. His initial physical injuries were not disabling, but he developed an anxiety reaction that made it impossible for him to continue his usual occupation of an ironworker. This case was brought under the workers compensation statute, and the court construed the word “injury5’ in the statute to include such an emotional injury.
The Bailey case could be construed as inapplicable to the present case, because it was brought under the worker’s compensation statute that is interpreted liberally in favor of the injured worker. However, there is no doubt under the common law of this state Mr. Bailey could maintain an action against the negligent party who caused his severe emotional injury. In my opinion he could recover, not for watching his co-worker fall, but for his own emotional injures in almost falling to his death.
Just as there is no requirement that the plaintiff be physically struck as a proximate cause of the defendant’s negligence in order to recover, it is not necessary that there be a physical manifestation of an emotional injury. Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 598 (Tex.1993) (“We are also not imposing a requirement that emotional distress manifest itself physically to be compensable.”).
I therefore agree that the plaintiff here who received only emotional injuries is not barred from recovery because he was not struck. I concur.