Per a Connecticut appeals court, looking at an employee and saying “Bang bang” does not, even when added to some other impolite conduct, rise to the level of “extreme and outrageous” behavior required to trigger a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress [Daniel Schwartz]
Posts Tagged ‘emotional distress’
June 14 roundup
- Bizarrely overbroad: “Tennessee law bans posting images that ’cause emotional distress'” [Tim Lee, Ars Technica]
- “Superlawyer Stanley Chesley Faces Reckoning Tuesday” [Dan Fisher, Forbes, Cincinnati Enquirer, reporter Jim Hannah, earlier]
- More on record run-up in used car prices [Perry; my Cato take]
- Winkler County, Texas nurses case illuminates evils of prosecution-as-weapon [Texas Observer via PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Not a parody: claim that litigious celebs should be doing more to support Litigation Lobby [CJD]
- “Feminism by Treaty: Why CEDAW is Still a Bad Idea” [Christina Sommers, Policy Review]
- Why do agents of so many miscellaneous government agencies pack guns? [Quin Hillyer last year]
- New idea for who to sue over sex scandals [Conan show lawyer ad parody, adult content]
Jilted bride sues ex-groom
Should the damages be confined to the unrecoverable costs of the planned wedding, or extend beyond that? [Today Show]
Woman sues airline over emergency landing
No physical injuries were reported at the time, but “passenger Jewel Thomas said she has suffered severe mental and emotional problems because of the incident on Sept. 22, 2008” in which an American Airlines plane skidded off the runway onto grass. [AP/WFAA]
SeaWorld lawsuit: seeing orca attack traumatized our kid
“A New Hampshire family who witnessed the Feb. 24 death of a killer-whale trainer at SeaWorld Orlando has sued the company in state court in Orlando, claiming their child was traumatized by the event.” [Orlando Sentinel]
“Ex-Client Wins $7.3M Emotional Distress Award Against Law Firm”
If law firms were asked to pay for all the emotional distress they inflict, there might never be an end to it. [ABA Journal]
Judge: no “emotional distress” for Empire State-jumper
“Preventing an individual from jumping off of the 86th floor of the Empire State Building is neither extreme nor outrageous,” wrote Judge Jane Solomon in disallowing the emotional-distress claim of Jeb Corliss, a daredevil jumper who had been prevented from jumping off the skyscraper in 2006. Solomon also found that the owners of the building had not defamed Corliss in legal papers when they called his stunt attempt “illegal.” (He was in fact convicted on misdemeanor charges.) The owners are suing Corliss for damages over the incident, which forced an hourlong shutdown of the observation deck. [AP]
Can’t make ’em up dept.
Germany: “Teacher with rabbit phobia to sue 14-year-old for drawing bunny.” The educator “says she was traumatized by the drawing, and claims the girl knew it would terrify her.” [Telegraph]
Claim: furniture makers responsible for firefighters’ anguish
Nine firefighters died in a blaze at a Charleston, S.C., furniture store in 2007. Now four other firefighters who were on the scene that night, along with two of their wives, have filed a lawsuit claiming emotional distress and depression. They have chosen to sue “the Sofa Super Store, its owners and several furniture manufacturers,” the latter on the theory that their wares should have been made of less combustible materials. [Charleston City Paper, with links to complaints, via Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf] On the erosion of the old “firefighters’ rule” which prevented rescuers from suing over injuries sustained in the course of their rescues, see our tag on the subject. On the development of lawsuits attributing liability after fires to whole groups of makers of furniture and other furnishings on the ground that they furnished fuel for the conflagration, see this retrospective (scroll) on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire of 1977, and, relatedly, our posts on the “Great White” Rhode Island concert fire.
Harrisburg mayor-elect traumatized out of pumping gas, suit says
“In a 2000 civil lawsuit filed in Bucks County, Linda Thompson claimed a faulty pump sprayed her with gasoline, leaving her in damaged clothing and with a lingering fear of filling up her cars with gasoline. … ‘(Thompson) is unable to psychologically pump her own gas,’ the suit states. It also notes that ‘(Thompson) becomes ill upon the smell of gas and will not seek to obtain gas until absolutely necessary as a result of this incident.'” Earlier this month Thompson was elected mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital. [Harrisburg Patriot-News on still-pending lawsuit and election]