| Venue: | ME SC |
| Facts: | Plaintiff's father dies in the hospital. Instead of a bag of personal effects, he is given A BAG OF LEG!!! This causes him emotional distress. |
| Posture: | Directed verdict for defendants at trial on the "severe emotional distress" claim. |
| Issue: | Could what Gammon suffered establish a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress, given that there was no medical evidence, and he sought no psychiatric attention? |
| Holding: | Yes. Reversed and remanded for trial. |
| Rule: | Psychological injuries do not require evidence of an underlying tort, or physical harm. |
| Reasoning: | If we think there is such a thing as psychological harm at all, we
shouldn't arbitrarily require that it be accompanied by something
else. This is an artificial device to protect against frauds:
the trial process can do that for us, and the tort principle
of foreseeability also. Defendants are bound to foresee when
their actions could reasonably be expected to cause psychological
harm to an ordinarily sensitive defendant.
Families of the recently deceased are especially vulnerable. The hospital and the mortician both know this, and it's pretty obvious that a severed leg would be shocking to them. A jury could conclude, on these facts alone, that the defendants failed to exercise reasonable care. |
| Dicta: | |