Court Opinion

ID: 9481777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:31:35.84645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:34.389307
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
With this decision, the majority fashion a general negligence cause of action for infliction of serious emotional distress and have become the first court to accept the Supreme Court’s “open invitation to the lower federal courts to explore the possibility of recovery under the FELA for a purely emotional injury.” 1 Because this holding is not warranted on the facts before us, imprudently rejects all accepted limitations on emotional injury claims, and conflicts with our precedents, I respectfully dissent from its reasoning, though not from the judgment.
At the outset, it must be noted, the majority have essentially issued an advisory opinion. After finding that there is a cause of action for purely emotional injuries under the FELA and the Jones Act and detailing the analysis for such claims, the majority reject Plaisance’s claim because the “injury complained of is not a reasonably fore*1012seeable consequence of the alleged negligence.” Because Plaisance failed to establish the prima facie elements of any negligence claim, no matter how broadly drawn, it would have been better not to decide whether emotional distress damages are under other circumstances compensable.
The majority have detailed the relevant decisions of this and other circuits, and I will not duplicate their efforts. It suffices to observe that all except the Ninth Circuit have treated emotional injury claims with circumspection. Two of the circuits have rejected claims for emotional injury unaccompanied by physical impact or a threat of impact; one circuit is dubious about it; and only the Ninth stands by a purely emotional injury FELA claim.2 Our own circuit has cabined this type of claim.3 Gaston v. Flowers, 866 F.2d 816 (5th Cir.1989); see also Hagerty v. L & L Marine Serv., Inc., 788 F.2d 315 (5th Cir.1986).
In Gaston, this court refused to construe the FELA to cover bystander injuries. Id. at 819. The court explained that because bystander recovery would vastly increase employers’ exposure to damages based on random factors that are unrelated to the safe operation of a train or vessel, for example, how many crew members observe an accident, whether their vision is obscured by darkness or weather, or how close they are to the accident scene, such liability would not advance a major purpose of the FELA and the Jones Act — providing employers with incentives to reduce dangers and to operate safely. Id. at 820. As Gaston observed, allowing bystander recovery could create potentially ruinous liability for employers.
Here, the majority’s analysis of emotional distress claims would allow bystanders to recover for emotional injuries if a “reasonable person, normally constituted, would not be able to cope adequately with the mental distress occasioned by the circumstances” that he witnessed. Applying the majority’s analysis to the facts of Ga-ston would lead to a different result. Ga-ston witnessed his half-brother’s death. He tried but failed to pull his half-brother to safety as he was crushed between two ships. After this traumatic event, it is quite likely that a reasonable person would not be able to cope adequately with the ensuing mental distress. Yet Gaston denied the plaintiff’s emotional distress claim.
The majority wave away the inconsistency between today’s ruling and Gaston by calling the earlier precedent a “myopic prognostication.” A more convincing explanation is demanded to escape the force of binding circuit precedent, yet the majority make no attempt to distinguish or limit Gaston. By rejecting bystander recovery, Gaston implicitly held that this court must analyze emotional distress claims under a standard at least as restrictive as the zone-of-danger test, which requires that the plaintiff be personally endangered.
Finally, even if this issue were properly before us and the majority’s holding did not untenably overrule Gaston, I would differ with their analysis because it departs from the great weight of authority partly designed to prevent feigned claims of emotional injury. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 436 A (1965) (negligent acts that result in purely emotional injuries are not a *1013source of liability); W. Prosser & W. Kee-ton, The Law of Torts, § 54 (5th ed. 1984).
The majority’s opinion sets forth the common-law approaches to emotional distress claims — physical impact or injury, zone-of-danger, and bystander recovery— but then rejects these “earlier-selected, fictitious method[s] of authenticating [emotional] injury,” as arbitrary tests that prevent recovery in cases of genuine and serious injury. In place of the accepted common-law rules, the majority adopts the “full recovery rule,” which allows a “general negligence cause of action for the infliction of serious emotional distress ... evaluated according to an objective standard.” 4
The majority adopted their standard from Rodrigues v. State, 52 Haw. 156, 173, 472 P.2d 509, 520 (1970), the first case to allow a general negligence action for emotional distress.5 Only Hawaii, California, and a minority of other states allow this cause of action. See W. Prosser & W. Keeton, supra, § 54 at 364-65. The majority of courts compensate emotional distress claims provided the mental distress can be authenticated by some physical injury, illness or other objective physical manifestation. See id. at 364 & cases cited in n. 55.6 “[Cjases will obviously be infrequent in which ‘mental disturbance,’ not so severe as to cause physical harm, will clearly be a serious wrong worthy of redress and sufficiently attested by the circumstances of the case.” Id. at 362; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 436(1) and (2) (1965) (negligent conduct that causes bodily harm solely through emotional disturbances, without physical contact, may be a basis for liability).
One may sympathize with the generous spirit that prompts the majority to recognize the potential genuineness and severity of some emotional injury claims. To acknowledge their existence is not, however, to establish a principled framework for recovery. The majority’s “rule” involving the “reasonable able-bodied seaman” is not so much that as an open invitation to creative pleading. Most of the circuits, apparently realizing the slipperiness of such claims, and their proneness to triviality or falsity, have so far wisely declined to bring such claims within the scope of FELA and the Jones Act. Gaston, cavalierly treated by the majority, placed limits on such claims. To top it off, Plaisance, having fathered an incredibly broad expansion of liability, will get no benefit from it himself — an ironic twist to a compensation-oriented opinion. This is no way to run a railroad.

. Maj. op. at 1006 (citing Moody v. Maine C.R. Co., 823 F.2d 693 (1st Cir.1987)).
The Ninth Circuit was the first circuit court to recognize a claim under the FELA for purely emotional injuries in Atchison, T. & S.F.R. Co. v. Buell, 771 F.2d 1320 (9th Cir.1985), the case underlying the Supreme Court’s "open invitation” to the lower federal courts to explore such claims. Bound by its own precedent, the Ninth Circuit continues to recognize such claims. See Taylor v. Burlington Northern R. Co., 787 F.2d 1309, 1313 (9th Cir.1986). The majority opinion, however, is the first opinion after Buell, 480 U.S. 557, 107 S.Ct. 1410, 94 L.Ed.2d 563 (1987), to recognize an emotional distress claim under the FELA and the Jones Act.

. Gaston, 866 F.2d at 818-19 (citing Adkins v. Seaboard System R.R., 821 F.2d 340 (6th Cir.1987) (rejecting FELA claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and hinting that it might also reject a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress); Hammond v. Terminal R.R. Assoc. of St. Louis, 848 F.2d 95 (7th Cir.1988) (rejecting recovery for emotional injury without physical contact); Moody v. Marine Central R.R. Co., 823 F.2d 693 (1st Cir.1987) (observing that its pre-Buell holding refusing recovery for purely emotional injury might now be in doubt); Taylor v. Burlington Northern R.R. Co., 787 F.2d 1309 (9th Cir.1986) (holding employer liable for plaintiff’s emotional injury).

. Although the Hagerty court purported to reject the physical impact/injury requirement for recovery for emotional injuries, that holding was later deemed dicta and the necessity of physical impact or injury for recovery remains an open question. See Gaston v. Flowers, 866 F.2d 315 (5th Cir.1989) (“While the Hagerty court did observe that a Jones Act recovery was possible without physical impact, that statement was necessarily dictum; for Mr. Hagerty did suffer impact, having been drenched with cancer-causing chemicals.”).

. The majority holding is not expressly limited to negligent infliction of emotional distress claims, and its definition of the full recovery rule could be construed to encompass claims for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. However, the Plaisances’ emotional distress claim is based solely upon a negligence theory and the issue of intentional infliction of emotional distress is not presented in this appeal. If the majority opinion is intended to cover intentional claims, I would have another reason to dissent.

. In Rodrigues, the court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to damages for the emotional distress they suffered after the State negligently failed to clear a drainage culvert and their house was flooded. In Campbell v. Animal Quarantine Station, Etc., 63 Haw. 557, 560, 632 P.2d 1066, 1068 (1981), the court applied Rodri-gues to the plaintiffs’ claim for the emotional distress they suffered when their dog died because of the defendants’ negligence. The court held that the plaintiffs could recover for their emotional distress even if they did not witness the tortious event, or introduce medical testimony to substantiate their claims of serious emotional distress. Id. at 562, 632 P.2d at 1069.

.A growing number of courts no longer require physical manifestations of emotional distress for recovery. See Corgan v. Muehling, 143 Ill.2d 296, 158 Ill.Dec. 489, 574 N.E.2d 602 (Ill.1991); Folz v. State, 110 N.M. 457, 797 P.2d 246 (1990); St. Elizabeth Hospital v. Garrard, 730 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.1987); Gates v. Richardson, 719 P.2d 193 (Wyo.1986). But see Hancock v. Northcutt, 808 P.2d 251 (Ala.1991); Reilly v. United States, 547 A.2d 894 (R.I.1988); Cunningham v. Lockard, 48 Wash.App. 38, 736 P.2d 305 (1987).