Court Opinion

ID: 9469097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:32:00.438578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:13.130862
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in Judge Peck’s opinion with this added comment.
*865Rule 8(e)(1), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that “each averment of a pleading shall be simple, concise and direct. No technical forms of pleadings ... are required.” Rule 8(a)(2) requires “a short plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief.” And Rule 8(f) admonishes that “all pleadings shall be so construed as to do substantial justice.” The Supreme Court incorporated the essence of Rule 8 in its statement that the rule merely requires “a short plain statement of the claim that will give the defendants fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds on which it rests.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 103, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).
The policy of the rulemakers was to eliminate the complexities and pitfalls of common law pleading. Professor Moore stated that policy in a nutshell: “Litigation is not an art of writing nice pleadings.” 6 Moore’s Federal Practice 12A, at 299 (2d ed.). In other words, the merit of a controversy is more important than the precision of the pleader. This case aptly illustrates why this salutary policy ought to constantly be observed.
I agree with Judge Peck that the allegations in the complaint are sufficient to state a tort claim for severe mental distress caused by the defendants’ outrageous conduct.* That kind of actionable wrong has had at least a fifty-year development. Relatively new, the tort is now recognized in Illinois as it is in most other jurisdictions. In those jurisdictions where it has been recognized, the concept has had a history of growth and refinement. That the contours of this kind of wrong are not definitively settled in Illinois is illustrated by the very discussion of that State’s appellate decisions indulged in by both Judge Eschbach and Judge Peck.
It is my thinking that .it is unfair to cut off litigation at the pleading stage in such circumstances. Dismissal is warranted only when the allegations of a complaint show unequivocally that a plaintiff is not entitled to relief. But when differing inferences can be drawn from raw or conclusory fact allegations, those inferences should militate in favor of the complaint’s viability. Reasons for the alleged conduct of the parties can ordinarily be gauged better on discovery or at trial. Also, the effect of such conduct can best be evaluated after a full development of the evidence. In sum, when there is an arguable basis, factually and legally, for recovery, as exists here, the *866case should not be thrown out precipitously bv striking the complaint.

 The pertinent allegations of the complaint are:
Before and during October 1979, MILLICENT GEIST was married to HERBERT GEIST, ... who was a General Agent for the Company for at least twenty five years, ... and who since at least 1964 was within the Company’s top ten general agents in the United States in generating sales for the Company.
... MILLICENT GEIST owned life insurance policies the value of which was in excess of one million, five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000.00), issued to her by the Company, ...
All the ... policies provided for guaranteed loan privileges ....
The privileges gave the policy owner the right to borrow the cash value of the policy at a specified rate of interest regardless of the rate of interest charged on the open mar- ■ ket.
... Defendants ... engaged in a practice designed to discourage policy owners from exercising their privileges.
The practice included a program of threats and coercion directed against the Company’s general agents to compel the general agents to convince policy owners not to exercise their privileges.
... MILLICENT GEIST exercised her privileges under the policies she owned and borrowed two hundred thirty thousand, nine hundred thirty seven dollars ($230,937.00) from the Company.
... [T]he defendants ... caused the termination of HERBERT GEIST as General Agent of the Company in retaliation against MILLICENT GEIST for exercising her privileges under the policies that she owned....
The Defendants’ . . . conduct, was done with the intent, or with reckless disregard of the probability of causing emotional distress to MILLICENT GEIST.
The Defendants’ ... conduct was outrageous.
As [the] proximate cause of Defendants’ . . . conduct, MILLICENT GEIST suffered severe and extreme emotional distress and loss of income she ordinarily would derive from and through her husband HERBERT GEIST.