Court Opinion

ID: 9718651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:29:03.155569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:00.949898
License: Public Domain

JEFFERSON (Bernard), J.—I concur and dissent.
I concur with the majority’s views with respect to affirmance of the judgment against plaintiff as to the second and fourth causes of action. I disagree with the majority in its holding that defendants were not entitled to a summary judgment with respect to plaintiff’s first cause of action.
The majority takes the view that, on the undisputed facts, plaintiff was entitled to go to trial on his first cause of action for damages for emotional distress resulting from the death of his child. The majority holds that plaintiff has stated a good cause of action for emotional distress in accord *360with the three requirements set forth in Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316] I cannot agree with the majority’s view that the defendants’ reliance on Justus v. Atchison (1977) 19 Cal.3d 564 [139 Cal.Rptr. 97, 565 P.2d 122], is misplaced.
I do not interpret Justus as does the majority. The majority states that the Justus court denied relief to the two fathers there solely on the ground that, on the facts alleged, each plaintiff-father’s distress over the death of his child arose only after the death when he was told of it by the defendant physician. The majority distinguishes that factual situation from the case at bench by asserting that plaintiff in the case at bench had learned of the death of his baby by his own observation, the allegation in the complaint being that upon the death of plaintiffs wife in the hospital without prior delivery of the unborn child, “plaintiff and defendants saw and felt the unborn child move” and that “the unborn baby then died without being born while plaintiff and defendants were present.”
I agree with the majority that Dillon sets forth three factors for a cause of action for emotional distress resulting from witnessing an injury negligently caused to a third person. One of these factors to be considered is “[w]hether the shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon plaintiff from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident, as contrasted with learning of the accident from others after its occurrence.” (Dillon, supra, 68 Cal.2d 728, 740-741.)
It is true that Justus does not depart from Dillon in the latter’s requirement that three factors are to be considered, including the factor previously quoted from Dillon. The majority, however, chooses to ignore an additional requirement imposed by Justus for a cause of action for emotional harm in witnessing an accident.
Although Justus does not depart from Dillon in its requirement that the plaintiff’s claim for emotional injury must result from the plaintiff’s sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident as one of the three factors to be taken into account, Justus imposes an additional requirement not set forth in Dillon that is not satisfied in the case at bench. This additional requirement is that plaintiff must be an involuntary witness to the accident and is denied recovery if he is a voluntary witness to the accident.
*361In Justus, after stating that neither plaintiff-father (there being two separate cases) was entitled to recover because “a shock caused by ‘learning of the accident from others after its occurrence’ (68 Cal.2d at p. 741) will not support a cause of action under Dillon” (Justus, supra, 19 Cal.3d 564, 585), the court proceeded to add that neither plaintiff-father could rely on Dillon for recovery of damages for emotional distress resulting from his child’s death for an additional reason over and above the three-factor requirements of Dillon. The Justus court then proceeded to point out that, by its very nature, a Dillon cause of action presupposes that the plaintiff was an involuntary witness to the accident. The Justus court then went on to point out that each plaintiff-father was in the delivery room of the hospital by his own choice and should be prepared to observe unpleasant and possibly traumatic complications. The court likened a father’s presence in a hospital delivery room to a lay person’s presence in a hospital operating room. The Justus court then stated that, although not invoking the doctrine of assumption of risk, it would not extend the right of recovery under the Dillon rule to fathers or others who were voluntarily in a delivery room of a hospital or in the operating amphitheater of a hospital.
The language by which Justus denies the right of recovery for emotional distress to a voluntary witness to an accident in a delivery room or an operation room of a hospital is as follows: “Moreover, in the context of this case reliance on Dillon seems particularly inappropriate for an additional reason. By its nature the Dillon cause of action presupposes that the plaintiff was an involuntary witness to the accident. Yet here, although the complaints are silent on the point, we must assume that each husband was in the delivery room by his own choice. Surely a layman who voluntarily observes a surgical operation must be prepared for the possibility of unpleasant or even harrowing experiences. This is no less true of the procedure of childbirth, which, although unlikely to be traumatic, is always subject to complications. We do not go so far as to invoke the doctrine of assumption of risk; but the ever-present possibility of emotional distress dissuades us from extending the Dillon rule into the operating amphitheater in these circumstances.” (Justus, supra, 19 Cal.3d 564, at p. 585.)
In the case at bench, from the allegations of the complaint and the declarations, the inference is unmistakable that plaintiff was a voluntary witness to the childbirth procedure which turned out to have disastrous consequences. Under these circumstances, the principles set forth in *362Justus mandate that summary judgment in favor of defendants on the first cause of action should be affirmed.
I do not believe that we are free to ignore the Justus holding which adds a fourth factor to the three factors outlined in Dillon for a cause of action for damages for emotional distress to a plaintiff resulting from witnessing an accident or injury to another negligently caused by defendant. I would thus affirm the judgment in its entirety.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 9, 1979. Bird, C. J., Mosk, J., and Manuel, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.