Court Opinion

ID: 9582830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:31:46.216594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:34.702510
License: Public Domain

Miller-Lerman, J.,
concurring.
I concur. I write separately to state that I am puzzled as to how the principles enunciated in Potter v. Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., 6 Cal. 4th 965, 863 P.2d 795, 25 Cal. Rptr. 2d 550 (1993), driven by fear of cancer-related issues, became grafted in toto into the California jurisprudence regarding fear of AIDS. The course and profiles of cancer and AIDS are markedly different, and the fear of cancer due to generalized exposure and fear of AIDS due to a discrete event are not fungible. See, generally, Hartwig v. Oregon Trail Eye Clinic, 254 Neb. 777, 580 N.W.2d 86 (1998). I also observe that in the instant case, there is expert testimony that Audrey suffered a “puncture wound,” unlike the “prick” in Macy’s Cal., Inc. v. Superior Court, 41 Cal. App. 4th 744, 48 Cal. Rptr. 2d 496 (1995), which could serve as the physical injury forming the basis for parasitic damages under the jurisprudence of both California and Nebraska. Nevertheless, we are confronted with the pronouncements in Macy’s Cal., Inc. which, although they may or may not foreshadow what the California Supreme Court would say under the facts of the instant case, we are bound to respect.