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23. Who should prevail?
A man's father died in a hospital. The hospital maintains a morgue with refrigerated drawers a bit larger than the human body. The decedent's body was placed in such a drawer awaiting pickup by a mortician. Before the mortician called for the body, a hospital orderly placed two opaque plastic bags in the drawer with the decedent's body. One bag contained the decedent's personal effects, and the other contained an amputated leg from some other hospital patient. It is stipulated that the hospital was negligent to allow the amputated leg to get into the decedent's drawer. The mortician delivered the two opaque plastic bags to the man, assuming both contained personal effects. The man was shocked when he opened the bag containing the amputated leg. The man sued the hospital to recover for emotional distress. At the trial, the man testified that the experience had been extremely upsetting, that he had had recurring nightmares about it, and that his family and business relationships had been adversely affected for a period of several months. He did not seek medical or psychiatric treatment for his emotional distress.
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However, there are a few special situations in which courts have allowed plaintiffs to recover for emotional distress when there would otherwise be no damages awarded. These involve either a special activity or special relationship among the parties such that the risk of emotional harm to the plaintiff is so great, and the number of affected plaintiffs is so small, that there is no concern of a flood of claimants or feigned distress. There are two main categories, including: (i) the mishandling of bodies, such as when a hospital or funeral home negligently mishandles a corpse, thereby causing emotional distress to a close relative of the deceased; and (ii) the negligent telegram company who incorrectly announces that a person is dead or seriously injured, which is delivered to an intimate family member.
A is correct. Typically, for a bystander to recover damages for emotional distress without any physical injury, he must show that he was in a close relationship with the injured party, was present at the scene, and witnessed the event. However, courts have allowed recovery in the absence of those factors in special situations, including the negligent mishandling of dead bodies in a way that causes emotional distress to family members. Here, the man shockingly received a foreign, severed leg along with his dead father's effects, which was the result of the mortician's negligence in putting another patient's body part in with the corpse. These facts satisfy the exception for recovering damages based on emotional distress caused by the mishandling of a family member's body.
B is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. The man should recover, but not because the hospital is subject to strict liability. The correct standard to apply is negligence, which contains a special category for recovery by plaintiffs who suffer distress from the negligent mishandling of their family members' corpses. Thus, the hospital's negligence is the source of the plaintiff's recovery, not strict liability. If there had been no negligence, the man would not have recovered.
C is incorrect. A claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress («IIED») requires a showing of severe emotional suffering, which usually requires that the plaintiff sought medical or psychiatric treatment for the distress. However, this is a case involving a special scenario of negligent infliction of emotional distress, which allows for recovery for emotional suffering (absent the seeking out of medical attention) by family members who experience the mishandling of their loved ones' bodies. Thus, the fact that the man did not require outside treatment is not dispositive.
D is incorrect. There are scenarios in which plaintiffs may recover for mental suffering absent any physical harm, usually based on their witnessing of physical injury to loved ones. However, this is not such a case. Physical injury is not required where family members experience emotional distress from the negligent mishandling of their relatives' bodies, which is what occurred here, as explained above.