Court Opinion

ID: 9542574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:36:02.193585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:20.866266
License: Public Domain

Springer, C. J.,
dissenting:
I do not see a daughter’s witnessing the slowly-emerging, not accidental effects of wrongly-prescribed medication as being the subject matter of a negligently-inflicted emotional distress tort action; so I dissent. There is not present here the required “contemporaneous observance” of an “accident.” The plaintiff cannot properly be described as a “bystander,” nor can it be said that she suffered a “shock” which resulted from a “direct emotional impact.’ ’
The questions presented by this case are: (1) whether Ms. *764Crippens can be said to have been a bystander who was located near the scene of an “accident”; (2) whether the suffering sustained by Ms. Crippens’ mother can be said to have resulted from an accident; (3) whether Ms. Crippens can be said to have suffered shock resulting from a direct emotional impact brought about by her observing an accident. The most important of these words in deciding the present case is the word “accident.”1 See State v. Eaton, 101 Nev. 705, 710 P.2d 1370 (1985).
Although it is probably safe to say that none of the elements of this tort (other than the close relationship of the mother and daughter) can be said to be present here, it is inescapably clear in this case that the negligently-treated mother was not the victim of an “accident.” We should keep in mind that most of these kinds of cases truly do involve an “accident,” cases, for example, in which mothers witness serious injuries being inflicted on their children, thus suffering a “direct emotional impact” and “shock” in the “observance” of the accident. This pattern does not fit the case now before us at all.
I will focus in this dissent on the missing element “accident.” *765We have in Nevada’s industrial compensation law a definition of “accident” that would seem to fit our purposes in this case. NRS 616A.030 tells us that an “‘[ajccident’ means an unexpected or unforeseen event happening suddenly and violently, with or without human fault, and producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury.” It is rather clear that there was no “accident” here, that Ms. Crippens did not observe an accident and that she did not suffer a “shock” from observing an accident.
It cannot be argued, under the definition of accident taken from Chapter 616A, that the mother’s progressive mental deterioration can be called an “accident.” Certainly, the mother’s failing condition did not occur “suddenly and violently,” and the negligent acts (dispensing the wrong drug) did not cause ‘ ‘at the time objective symptoms of an injury.” (Emphasis added.) The glove just does not fit. This is clearly not a case of negligently inflicted emotional injury; and I would hold that the trial judge was correct in granting summary judgment to Sav On.

Although the majority correctly states that this case is governed by Eaton, and recites the standard requirements for a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim as set forth in Eaton, the majority curiously fails to apply those standard requirements to the instant case. Instead, the majority addresses only foreseeability and proximate cause which, of course, are the “cornerstone” issues of a negligence claim. If these issues were alone dispositive of claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress, the cause of action would never have developed, as it would have the same elements as ordinary negligence. Negligent infliction of emotional distress is a “discrete tort cause of action,” rather than simply an expansion of the damages upon which an ordinary negligence claim may be predicated. Thing v. La Chusa, 771 P.2d 814, 817 (Cal. 1989).
Allowing those who are emotionally impacted by the physical injuries of others to recover for their emotional distress under ordinary negligence principles alone would encourage an unwarranted proliferation of this special kind of tort litigation. The California Supreme Court, which developed the requirements adopted in Eaton in the landmark case of Dillon v. Legg, 441 P.2d 912 (Cal. 1968), has subsequently commented on “the importance ofavoiding the limitless exposure to liability that the pure foreseeability test of ‘duty’ would create.” Thing, 771 P.2d at 821. The court concluded:
[Rjeliance on foreseeability of injury alone in finding a duty, and thus a right to recover, is not adequate when the damages sought are for an intangible injury. In order to avoid limitless liabiltiy out of all proportion to the degree of a defendant’s negligence, and against which it is impossible to insure without imposing unacceptable costs on those among whom the risk is spread, the right to recover for negligently caused emotional distress must be limited.
Id. at 826-27; see also John L. Diamond, Dillon v. Legg Revisited: Toward a Unified Theory of Compensating Bystanders and Relatives for Intangible Injuries, 35 Hastings L. J. 477 (1984). The limitations on recovery recited in Dillon and discussed in Thing have already been adopted by Nevada in Eaton and, I suggest, should be properly and faithfully applied in the present case.