‘Emotional Distress’ Is Hard to Define or Win

Intentional infliction of emotional distress. It sounds like a description of the goals of certain science fiction film producers, but actually it is a legal doctrine.

Yes, you can sue someone for disturbing your peace of mind. But it is not easy to win. The conduct in question must be legally “outrageous” or as one court explained, behavior “so extreme as to exceed all bounds of that usually tolerated in a civilized community.”

The conduct must be beyond all bounds of decency--ordinary rude and abusive behavior won’t cut it. “There is no occasion for the law to intervene in every case where some one’s feelings are hurt,” observed one court.

The plaintiff, the person who files such a suit, must show that the conduct was intentional, that it was outrageous, and that it actually caused the resulting emotional distress. There doesn’t have to be physical threats or violence involved; verbal abuse--if outrageous enough--can suffice.

Many of the cases in this area which have been decided in favor of the plaintiff involve landlord and tenant disputes and conduct by collection agencies. In one case, the landlord removed the belongings of a tenant and rented the apartment to a new tenant. In another, the landlord threatened to throw out the tenant personally and made life-threatening statements.

High-pressure collection tactics have also been the basis for successful emotional distress suits.

“Unwarranted interference with a dead body, as by an unlawful autopsy, is a frequent basis of liability for emotional distress,” according to Bernard Witkin’s treatise on California law.

In a similar vein, last year a California Court of Appeal decided close family members can sue for emotional distress when a funeral home substitutes the wrong corpse for the body of their loved one.

Emotional distress theories are also often added as supplemental claims in so-called wrongful discharge cases, in which an employee sues his employer after being fired. Although the California Supreme Court has placed limits on the possible recovery of punitive damages for being wrongfully discharged, a plaintiff can still collect punitive damages for an emotional distress claim because it is a part of tort law, not contract law.

In one recent case, a court allowed a claim for emotional distress by an employee against his employer. The employee was placed on probation after returning from disability leave, then given more work than was possible to complete, then fired, then reinstated a week later and then fired again three weeks after that.

Trying to understand all of this may be giving some of you emotional distress.

Fortunately, for me, it is unlikely that an emotional distress claim would be allowed by readers who were upset by reading a legal column trying to explain the nuances of California tort law.