| Venue: | NY Ct. App. |
| Facts: | Baby Kawana is abducted from the hospital, and is missing for 4.5 months. The hospital had been distracted by a couple of bomb threats. |
| Posture: | Summary judgment for defendants denied at trial. The denial is affirmed on appeal, but the vote is divided, and they send it on to the Court of Appeals. |
| Issue: | Is summary judgment appropriate? (or maybe dismissal?) |
| Holding: | Yes. There's no cause of action here. Reversed. Dismissed. |
| Rule: | The hospital may have been negligent, but they're not liable to the parents here. |
| Reasoning: | Rights exist correlative with duties. Just because you have suffered doesn't mean that someone else owes you a duty. We'd have lawsuits galore if we allowed parents to sue every time they got scared about their kids. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: don't we vindicate wrongs even if there will be a flood of litigation? don't we compensate for psychological harm? |