Court Opinion

ID: 9620197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:39:41.180904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:48.252863
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring.
I concur in the holding of the majority opinion and in general in its rationale.
However, I cannot acquiesce in the majority’s gratuitous limitation of our decision in Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (1980) 27 Cal.3d 916 [167 Cal.Rptr. 167, 616 P.2d 813]. The majority mount unnecessary and uncalled-for criticism of Molien, copied largely from the misguided analysis of Molien in the majority opinion in Thing v. La Chusa (1989) 48 Cal.3d 644, 658-660 *1086[257 Cal.Rptr. 865, 771 P.2d 814], Because the Thing majority misread Molien (see my dissent in Thing, supra, at pp. 678-679), so too do the majority here.
Compounding the error, the majority assert there is a “perception” that Molien introduced a new method for determining duty, “limited only by the concept of foreseeability”; and the majority gratuitously conclude, “To the extent that Molien . . . stands for this proposition, it should not be relied upon and its discussion of duty is limited to its facts.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1074.) But Molien does not “stand” for any such proposition, and the majority’s proposed limitation of Molien thus collapses in a legal vacuum.
Elsewhere in their opinion the majority cite Thing with apparent approval for several other propositions. I cannot join in giving that decision any weight at all: in my view it was a judicial aberration. Because Thing is not actually in point—it was a “bystander” case, not a “direct victim” case—I need not reiterate here the defects in the Thing majority opinion discussed at length in my dissent (48 Cal.3d at p. 677) and that of Justice Broussard (id. at p. 682). I will recall only my observation in Thing that in disregard of the principle of stare decisis the majority there proceeded to “recite a monotonous inventory of cases with which they find fault. For the past three decades apparently all the courts in tort cases have been out of step except the current majority.” (48 Cal.3d at p. 677, fn. omitted.) An opinion displaying the judicial arrogance of the Thing majority does not merit citation as authority.
Nevertheless, the majority here manage to recoup by recognizing the “sound” principle of Molien that “a cause of action to recover damages for negligently inflicted emotional distress will lie, notwithstanding the criteria imposed upon recovery by bystanders, in cases where a duty arising from a preexisting relationship is negligently breached.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1074.) Here the preexisting relationship between defendant and plaintiff—i.e., the relationship of obstetrician and patient—gave rise to a duty of care that defendant owed both to plaintiff and to the child she was carrying. And as the majority correctly hold, it is plainly foreseeable that a negligent delivery resulting in severe permanent injuries to the child will cause its mother serious emotional distress, and hence result in liability on this theory. Indeed, that was the point of Justice Broussard’s dissent in Thing, supra, 48 Cal.3d at page 682: he maintained, very simply, that “foreseeability and duty determine liability .... There is no reason why these general rules of tort law should not apply to negligent infliction of emotional distress actions.”
*1087Because the majority opinion is ultimately consistent with the principles of Molien and the dissents in Thing, I concur in its result.