Court Opinion

ID: 9744794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:16:19.426117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:51.800131
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DOOLEY, dissenting: The sole issue is whether the amended counterclaim states a cause of action. The dismissal order tells us that the pleading did not state a cause of action under Knierim v. Izzo (1961), 22 Ill. 2d 73. What are the allegations which counterplaintiff seeks the opportunity to prove? In count I of her amended counterclaim, she alleges that on September 1, 1974, when she had discontinued her regular payments, she informed Public Finance that she was unemployed and her sole income was from public aid; that from September 1, 1974, through April 4, 1975, the finance company engaged in an “outrageous course of conduct, *** with the intent of causing severe emotional distress *** or in reckless disregard of the possibility of causing severe emotional distress to her.” She specified during this seven-month period this conduct consisted of calling her several times weekly and frequently more than once daily and harassing her “by going to her home one or more times.” In October 1974, while her daughter was confined to the hospital with a brain tumor, an employee of Public Finance called her at the hospital while she was awaiting word of her daughter’s condition, at which time she informed Public Finance’s employee of the severity of the daughter’s condition and that she herself was sick and had nervous problems. She asked him to refrain from making further calls to her at the hospital, but nonetheless the said employee made an additional call to her at the waiting room at the hospital. She further alleges that in November 1974, after advising the Public Finance employee there were no funds in her checking account, she was induced to write a check to the corporation to demonstrate “good faith.” It was represented that the check would not be processed. However, the company employee telephoned an acquaintance of counterplaintiff and informed her that counter-plaintiff was writing bad checks. She further charged that in October or November of 1974 the finance company’s employee, after being advised counterplaintiff was without funds, was permitted to use her telephone to report to the finance corporation counterplaintiff’s household goods, and at that time the employee refused to leave counterplaintiff’s home until her son entered the room. And on that particular day as a proximate result of the conduct of the Public Finance employee, counterplaintiff became ill and had to summon a doctor. She alleged she suffered physical and mental anguish and severe emotional distress as a result of the foregoing conduct of the finance company. Her second count alleges that during this seven-month period she suffered from hypertension as well as a nervous condition and was particularly susceptible to emotional distress. In October 1974 and on subsequent occasions thereafter, she so informed Public Finance Corporation’s employee of her nervous condition, and in January 1975 advised a Public Finance Corporation employee that she was pregnant. She thus alleges knowledge by the finance company of her susceptibility to emotional distress. Count II also embraced the same causation claim as is found in count I. On a motion to dismiss we must assume the charges to be true. In Knierim v. Izzo (1961), 22 Ill. 2d 73, we recognized the tort arising out of the intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. While it is true that the allegations there involved a threat of murder to plaintiff’s husband, as well as a fulfillment of that threat, nonetheless the principle with which we are dealing was recognized. All arguments against this rule of law were considered in detail and each was rejected. Knierim is the yardstick with which to measure the pleading. Knierim’s progeny and its genesis are both enlightening. In Eckenrode v. Life of America Insurance Co. (7th Cir. 1972), 470 F.2d'l, Knierim was held to be the basis of a cause of action against an insurer by a wife, the beneficiary of the husband’s policy, upon allegations that the insurer repeatedly refused to make payment although it knew or should have known of the decedent’s accidental death, the wife’s financial needs, and her resulting mental distress arising out of its refusal. In reversing a judgment entered upon the pleading, the reviewing court observed: “We have no doubt, in view of Knierim v. Izzo, 22 Ill. 2d 73, 174 N.E.2d 157 (1961), that the Illinois Supreme Court would sustain plaintiff’s complaint against Insurer’s motion to dismiss.” 470 F.2d 1, 3. Eckenrode pointed out how this court in Knierim referred to State Rubbish Collectors Association v. Siliznoff (1952), 38 Cal. 2d 330, 240 P.2d 282, where the California court, in an opinion by Justice Roger Traynor, recognized this tort for the first time. Siliznoff could recover from the cross-defendant Rubbish Collectors Association for mental distress caused by severe threats to beat him up, destroy his truck and put him out of business unless Siliznoff agreed to make certain payments to the Association. So also alluded to in Eckenrode was Fletcher v. Western National Life Insurance Co. (1970), 10 Cal. App. 3d 376, 89 Cal. Rptr. 78, which held that insurance companies’ bad faith refusals to make payment under a disability policy were tortious in character and could provide the basis for an action against the carrier for intentional infliction of emotional wrong. The refusals there were willfully employed by the carrier together with threatening and false letters directed to the insured to cause him to surrender his policy or settle on its terms a nonexistent dispute. The essence of this tort is wrongful intent. Conduct which is legal may become wrongful when accompanied by an illegal intent as well as a harmful result. It is proper to operate an automobile; it is illegal to do so with the intent of injuring another. As was observed in Bowden v. Spiegel, Inc. (1950), 96 Cal. App. 2d 793, 795, 216 P.2d 571, 572, “The important elements are that the act is intentional, that it is unreasonable, and that the actor should recognize it as likely to result in illness. Given these elements the modern cases recognize that mere words, oral or written, which result in physical injury to another are actionable.” In 1936 Magruder, discussing “Mental and Emotional Disturbance in the Law of Torts” in 49 Harv. L. Rev. 1033, observed at page 1067: “No longer is it even approximately true that the law does not pretend to redress mental pain and anguish ‘when the unlawful act complained of causes that alone. ’ If a consistent pattern cannot yet be clearly discerned in the cases, this but indicates that the law on this subject is in a process of growth.” Twenty years later, in 1956, Professors Harper and James stated: “*** [A] 1 though ordinarily there may be no recovery for disagreeable emotional disturbance alone negligently caused, there is, in modem law, a distinct tendency to allow recovery for such disturbances if they, in turn, result in foreseeable physical injury or illness.*** Where severe mental suffering is intentionally caused and it is of such a kind as is likely to and does cause bodily illness, the case for recovery is obviously stronger and the law today generally allows it ***.” 1 Harper and James, Torts 665. Eight years later, in 1964, Prosser noted: “It is not until comparatively recent years that there has been any general admission that the infliction of mental distress, standing alone, may serve as the basis of an action, apart from any other tort. In this respect, the law is clearly in a process of growth, the ultimate limits of which cannot as yet be determined.” Prosser, Torts sec. 11, at 41-42 (3d ed. 1964). The general thinking that the law should protect emotional tranquility against intentional invasion prompted the American Law Institute as long ago as 1947 to amend section 46 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts to provide: “One, who without a privilege to do so, intentionally causes severe emotional distress to another is liable (a) for such emotional distress, and (b) for bodily harm resulting from it.” In comments to this section the following appears: “An intention to cause severe emotional distress exists when the act is done for the purpose of causing the distress or with knowledge on the part of the actor that severe emotional distress is substantially certain to be produced by his conduct. [Citation.] If an act is done with the requisite intention, it is immaterial that the actor is not inspired by any personal hostility to the other ***. The interest in freedom from severe emotional distress is regarded as of sufficient importance to require others to refrain from conduct intended to invade it. Such conduct is tortious.” Restatement of Torts (Supp. 1948). Bill collectors have long occupied a special niche in the law of torts recognizing recovery for intentional infliction of emotional disturbances. (See Clark v. Associated Retail Credit Men (1939), 70 App. D.C. 183, 105 F.2d 62; Curnutt v. Wolf (1953), 244 Iowa 683, 57 N.W.2d 915, and Annot., 46 A.L.R.Sd 772 (1972). In 91 A.L.R. 1495 (1934) are collected some of the older cases. We agree with the majority that in measuring this intentional conduct it must be “extreme and outrageous” except that a lesser grade of conduct will support a cause of action where the actor has knowledge of the fact that emotional distress is substantially certain to result. The emotional distress, we further agree, must be severe. However, neither is a problem here since the amended counterclaim also alleged the finance company engaged in an outrageous course of conduct with the intention of causing severe emotional distress and as a proximate result counterplaintiff sustained severe emotional distress. This pleading, it must be remembered, was dismissed for failure to state a cause of action. “Outrageous,” “intentional,” and “severe” are words of common understanding. So long as they are requisite to the statement of a cause of action, they are proper in a pleading of this nature. The conduct described as such must be considered in the context of time, place, surrounding circumstances, and knowledge by the actor that it will reasonably cause emotional distress. Not to be overlooked is the person making the appraisal. Certainly the dowager would consider conduct “highly outrageous” which the youth would regard as prosaic. So long as reasonable men might differ in their evaluation of the character of the conduct, the judicial function is exhausted. The majority opinion would segregate count I from count II, which alleges the plaintiff’s actual knowledge of counterplaintiff’s condition of ill health by counter-defendant. But, if one or more counts in a complaint are good, a motion to dismiss will not be sustained. (Barzowski v. Highland Park State Bank (1939), 371 Ill. 412, 416; Stenwall v. Bergstrom (1947), 398 Ill. 377, 383.) Accordingly, on this motion to dismiss the complaint, count II should not have been segregated from count I. Each was a substantial part of the amended counterclaim which should not have been thus dismembered. So also we do not believe that on a motion to dismiss the court should engage in an attenuation process. Thus the majority observes: “This conduct [the finance company inducing the counterplaintiff to write what it knew was a bad check] was wrong and no doubt caused Davis considerable embarrassment and distress. However, this appears to be a single isolated act.” Yet it was intentional and a fragment of the panorama described by pleading. This conduct is far more egregious than those instances where on one occasion abusive language was employed or a threatening letter written. Yet one instance sufficed. See Bennett v. City National Bank & Trust Co. (Okla. App. 1975), 549 P.2d 393, and Christensen v. Swedish Hospital (1962), 59 Wash. 2d 545, 368 P.2d 897. Again we find a statement difficult to reconcile with the result reached by the majority. “There can be no doubt that the conduct of the employees of Public Finance disturbed Davis and possibly caused her emotional distress.” But this allegedly outrageous and intentional conduct caused emotional distress. What more could be exacted on a motion to dismiss? The majority also notes that, “as to the numerous telephone calls, there is no allegation as to what was said by the person making the calls.” And again: “The mere fact that a second call was made to Davis at the hospital after she had requested that they not call her there cannot be so considered, since there is no allegation as to what was said or even that the second call was for the purpose of collecting the past due obligation.” Obviously, to exact in a complaint the language in the telephone call would require pleading evidence — a practice long condemned by this court (People ex rel. Hamlin v. Payson (1904), 210 Ill. 82). Moreover, the Civil Practice Act only requires a “plain and concise statement of the pleader’s cause of action, counterclaim, defense, or reply.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 33. Courts are not so naive as to believe that a bill collector makes numerous telephone calls at inappropriate times and places to endear himself to the particular debtor. The majority manifests the unwholesome tendency to transmute considerations of fact into considerations of law. This practice is the belittling sin of the law of tort. The House of Representatives of the United States the other day passed a bill directed at the prohibition of abuses by debt collectors, “A Bill to Amend the Consumer Credit Protection Act to Prohibit Abusive Practices by Debt Collectors,” H.R. 5294, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. Amongst the condemned practices were communication with the consumer more than two times during every 7-calendar-day period, communications with third persons without the consumer’s consent or that of a court of competent jurisdiction, and failing to cease communications when the consumer refuses to pay or discuss the account. Harassment or intimidation are also anathema under this bill. In the catalog of harassments and intimidation is the making of threatening telephone calls to a consumer or calling any person “repeatedly or constantly,” as well as the acceptance by a debt collector of a post-dated check. A debt collector who violates the proposed law incurs a civil liability which includes reasonable attorney’s fees. It would seem that the action of the House of Representatives is not a case of deja vu. Indeed, this case comes within the full litany of the prohibition of the abuses the Congress of the United States is attempting to correct. As judges, we can hardly be immune to the course of events engulfing the lives of the public. We believe the judgment of dismissal of the counterclaim ought to be reversed and the cause remanded for trial. MR. JUSTICE CLARK joins in this dissent.