Court Opinion

ID: 9493671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:14:52.107163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:57.716210
License: Public Domain

*114JACOBS, Circuit Judge (concurring):
I agree with the result in this appeal and with all the analysis that is needed to support that result. I write separately to emphasize that the Court does not adopt a definition of “immediate,” other than to hold that, under any definition considered or conceivable, Nelson does not recover.
I agree with the majority opinion that, regardless of how one defines the term “immediate risk of physical harm,” Nelson has not demonstrated immediacy. Maj. Op. at 113. But the majority opinion in dicta then posits and evaluates several definitions, rating some candidates higher than others. In my view, immediacy of risk denotes the absence of mediate intervals of time or place or other circumstance (possibly including cause); i.e., something happened that would have caused plaintiff physical harm then and there if she had been a step closer or a moment sooner or later. My reading of Gottshall immediacy is informed by the Supreme Court’s use of the immediacy requirement as a limit on litigable claims. See Gottshall, 512 U.S. at 552, 114 S.Ct. 2396. Gottshall immediacy is conceived in terms of a zone of danger. Zonal danger bespeaks risk at a delimited place and time. An extinct volcano is not a danger zone, nor is a point remote from an active one. In this case, nothing happened; Houle did not menace or attack the plaintiff. The discussion of immediacy in the majority opinion is therefore a particularly disembodied form of dicta.1
This dicta anticipates issues of some strategic significance. In Metro-North Commuter Railroad v. Buckley, 521 U.S. 424, 117 S.Ct. 2113, 138 L.Ed.2d 560 (1997), the Supreme Court reversed an opinion of this Court in which we had held that a railroad worker who inhaled asbestos-containing insulation dust could maintain a FELA action under the “physical impact” prong of the zone of danger test. See Buckley v. Metro-North Commuter R.R., 79 F.3d 1337, 1345-46 (2d Cir.1996). We had reasoned that “physical impact” included contact with a toxic substance that “causes a measurable increase in the possibility of [the plaintiff] developing asbestos-related disease” in the future, so long as the contact would “cause fear in a reasonable person.” Id. at 1344-45 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court reversed, holding that “the ‘physical impact’ to which Gotshall referred does not include a simple physical contact with a substance that might cause a disease at a substantially later time-where that substance, or related circumstance, threatens no harm other than the disease-related risk.” Buckley, 521 U.S. at 430, 117 S.Ct. 2113.
The majority opinion in this case suggests that a court could accomplish under the “immediate risk of physical harm” prong of the Gottshall zone of danger test what the Supreme Court held cannot be done under the “physical impact” prong of the test. Maybe that is a good idea. But this appeal does not present an occasion for such a ruling, and the discussion that bears on this question is (and is conceded to be) dicta.

. The majority opinion for some reason places grandparents within the "immediate” family. On one level, I suppose, that depends on the grandparents. The definition of "immediate family” in law, however, is cast in terms of two consecutive generations. See Black's Law Dictionary 620 (7th ed. 1999) ("A person's parents, spouse, children, and siblings.”). This is a question that has ramifications. See, e.g., Baker v. Dorfman, 2000 WL 1233349, *4 (2d Cir. Sept.1, 2000) (holding that, under New York law, a plaintiff can recover for emotional injury as a consequence of witnessing serious physical injury done to a member of plaintiff's "immediate family”); Trombetta v. Conkling, 82 N.Y.2d 549, 605 N.Y.S.2d 678, 678, 626 N.E.2d 653 (1993) ("[W]hile plaintiff was, without doubt, within the zone of danger when defendants' truck killed her aunt, the claim for the negligent suffering of emotional distress was properly dismissed because plaintiff is not within the deceased's 'immediate family’.”).