Court Opinion

ID: 9722127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:17:17.336289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:30.782387
License: Public Domain

*526CRONE, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's decision to deny recovery as a matter of law for the negligent infliction of emotional distress arising from damage to or loss of property. The so-called "impact rule" is a legal fiction that was created to protect juries from the difficult task of evaluating claims in which the alleged damages might be fraudulent, i.e., emotional trauma. In reality, the rule has blocked the pursuit of many otherwise valid claims for want of a physical injury.
When the "impact rule" was adopted in the nineteenth century, emotional trauma was a much less widely accepted and recognized element of compensable damages. For example, in Kalen v. Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad Company, 18 Ind.App. 202, 47 N.E. 694 (1897), the court denied recovery for "great mental pain and anxiety" suffered by a passenger in a buggy drawn by a horse frightened at a railroad crossing:
We think it cannot properly be said that such injuries are imaginary or conjectural, or that the sufferings described are not real. Nor does it seem to us proper to say that they cannot be disregarded as directly and naturally resulting from the act of the defendant as their proximate cause.
But not every injurious effect of wrong can form the basis of damages. Many ill consequences follow from wrongs as proximate effects for which the law cannot afford redress, because of the inadequacy of the methods and means of courts to reach just and adequate results with sufficient certainty.
The evidence of such injuries is so much within the control of the person claiming to be so injured, and there is so little opportunity for subjecting the fact to the tests which may be and are applied in courts of justice for the ascertainment of the truth to the appreciation of the triors, that besides the encouragement that would be given to increase of litigation, there would be much danger of frequent injustice in allowing such claims to be presented for trial.
Id. at 213, 47 N.E. at 697-98.
After a century of such bright-line legal fiction, Indiana courts have undercut the "impact rule" to the point that a plaintiff has a cognizable claim for damages caused by the negligence of another if the claimant is "directly involved" and sustains serious emotional trauma and if the incident is sufficiently severe as can reasonably be expected to cause serious emotional trauma in a reasonable person. See Groves v. Taylor, 729 N.E.2d 569, 573 (Ind.2000). As the majority acknowledges here, the Ketchmarks have met those criteria.
By invoking the last vestiges of the impact rule-that the plaintiff or "someone related" to the plaintiff must be "impacted or threatened with impact"-we are again denying access to our courts to otherwise legitimate claimants. The continuing effort to articulate an evolving definition of what remains of the "impact rule" has resulted in the anomalous situation in this state of a claim being recognized for mental anguish suffered by parents resulting from the loss of their deceased child's remains, see Blackwell, 771 N.E.2d 692, but the denial of a parent's claim for emotional trauma resulting from the loss of a live child, see Ritchhart v. Indpls. Pub. Sch., 812 N.E.2d 189 (Ind.Ct.App.2004), trans. pending.
I believe that the time has come to clear the decks of the so-called "impact rule" and to allow the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress to stand on its own inherent elements. If we trust jurors to determine whether a criminal defendant should live or die, then we should consider them capable of deciding whether a claimant's serious emotional trauma is both le*527gitimate and reasonable, without imposing any artificial impediment to recovery.
Compare the paternalistic sentiments uttered by the Kalen court in 1897 with those expressed by the Supreme Court of Hawaii in Rodrigues v. State, 52 Haw. 156, 472 P.2d 509 (1970), in which the court permitted the plaintiffs to pursue their claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress resulting from the flooding of their new home before they could occupy it:
Courts which have administered claims of mental distress incident to an independent cause of action are just as competent to administer such claims when they are raised as an independent ground for damages. In judging the genuineness of a claim of mental distress, courts and juries may look to 'the quality and genuineness of proof and rely to an extent on the contemporary sophistication of the medical profession and the ability of the court and jury to weed out dishonest claims' In cases other than where proof of mental distress is of a medically significant nature, the general standard of proof required to support a claim of mental distress is some guarantee of genuineness in the cireumstances of the case.
Id. at 519-20 (citations omitted).1
I agree with the Supreme Court of Ha-wail's enlightened rationale, and I see no legally or logically defensible reason why the Ketchmarks should not be able to seek recovery for the emotional trauma resulting from the complete destruction of the home in which they had lived for nearly half a century. Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court's grant of summary judgment in NIPSCO's favor and remand for further proceedings.

. In response to a dissenting opinion, the Rodrigues majority stated,
Against the holding it is said that juries are now 'without restraint' and that the law should not encourage 'attachment to material possession' 'in an age when man has surrounded himself with a veritable plethora of material possessions.' Indeed, our decision does shift a part of the burden of administering claims of mental distress inordinately assumed by the courts to juries. As in other mental tort cases, the jury, representing a cross section of the community is in a better position to consider under what - particular - circumstances - society should or should not recognize recovery for mental distress. We have not decided that a value should be put on 'attachment to material possessions' but that that decision is properly a function which should be shared with the jury. Moreover, the jury is no less 'without restraint under the 'reasonable man' standard we have established than in innumerable other negligence cases where a 'reasonable man' standard and general tort principles are applied and where the preliminary issue of whether the case presents questions on which reasonable men would disagree is for the court.
Rodrigues, 472 P.2d at 521 n. 8.