Camper v. Minor

Page 437

915 S.W.2d 437

Bobby L. CAMPER, III, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Daniel B. MINOR, Administrator ad litem of the Estate of Jennifer L. Taylor, and Sharon R. Barnett Defendants-Appellees.

Supreme Court of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Jan. 29, 1996.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sullivan County; Hon. Roger E. Thayer, Judge.

John P. Chiles, Eilers & Chiles, Kingsport, Thomas F. Bloom, Nashville, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jack M. Vaughn, Fuller & Vaughn, Kingsport, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

DROWOTA, Justice.

In this negligent infliction of emotional distress case, the plaintiff Bobby L. Camper, II, appeals from the Court of Appeals' judgment granting the defendants a summary judgment. This case presents two issues for our determination: (1) whether a non-negligent driver who suffered no substantial physical injury may recover for emotional injuries under the facts presented in this case; and (2) whether the "family purpose doctrine" survives the adoption of comparative negligence and the abolition of joint and several liability.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On April 14, 1992, the plaintiff Camper was driving his cement truck along South Wilcox Drive, a four-lane highway in Kingsport, Tennessee. At the same time, Jennifer L. Taylor, a 16 year old driver of a car owned by Sharon Barnett, was proceeding on Reservoir Road, a two-lane road that intersects with South Wilcox Drive. As Camper approached the South Wilcox-Reservoir Road intersection, which is controlled by a stop sign, Ms. Taylor, who had been stopped at this intersection, suddenly pulled out in front of Camper. The vehicles collided, and Ms. Taylor was killed instantly. Camper exited his truck moments after the crash, walked around the front of his vehicle, and viewed Ms. Taylor's body in the wreckage from close range.

Mr. Camper subsequently brought an action against Daniel B. Minor, the administrator of Ms. Taylor's estate, and Sharon Barnett, seeking to recover for the emotional injuries he allegedly received as a result of viewing Ms. Taylor's body soon after the accident. In his complaint, Camper did not allege that he sustained any substantial physical injury in the accident; instead, he alleged that "as a result of this accident, the plaintiff suffers from personal injuries to his nerves and nervous system known as a post traumatic disorder [sic], which injury is serious and disabling to him." In his deposition, Mr. Camper testified as to the nature of his injuries as follows:

Q: Okay. At the time of the accident, when the accident occurred, were you injured as a result of this accident?

A: Not physically, but emotionally and mentally I was.

Q: All right. Now--so when you say you weren't injured physically, no broken bones, no cuts, no bruises, no back problems, no nothing [sic]?

A: No, sir. I had a small scrape on my knee.

Q: Okay. But nothing to warrant doctors' care.

A: No, sir.

In his affidavit, Mr. Camper stated "[t]hat as a result of the collision in which I was involved, I have sustained mental and emotional injuries resulting in loss of sleep, inability to function on a normal basis, outbursts of crying and depression. It has been necessary for me to be under the care and treatment of a psychiatrist and counselors and further that I am taking medication in order to help relieve me of my suffering." Camper testified in his deposition that he never feared for his own safety during the accident, and that his emotional injuries resulted solely from seeing Ms. Taylor's body in the car immediately after the accident.

About two weeks after the accident, Mr. Camper consulted a psychiatrist about his mental problems stemming from the accident. He went to the psychiatrist's office twice; but he stated that he quit going because he could not afford it and because the medication the psychiatrist prescribed left him unable to function. Camper later consulted a second psychiatrist. (This visit was three days before Camper's deposition; he stated in his deposition that his lawyer had arranged for the consultation.) This second psychiatrist referred Camper to an apparently more affordable center for counseling; at the time of the deposition, however, Camper had not yet had an appointment at this counseling center. Despite the fact that the record reflects that Camper has undergone some psychiatric treatment, it contains no expert medical evidence detailing his alleged mental and emotional injuries.

After the complaint was filed, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that damages for emotional injuries were not recoverable because Camper did not suffer any physical injury and because he did not, at the time of the accident, fear for his own safety. The defendants relied upon Shelton v. Russell Pipe and Foundry Co., 570 S.W.2d 861 (Tenn.1978) to support this argument.

The trial court denied the defendants' motion, finding that Shelton--a "zone of danger" case in which a father sued for emotional injuries after learning of his daughter's injury in an automobile accident in which the father was not involved--did not apply because "the plaintiff was personally involved in the automobile accident and suffered minor injuries." The defendants then sought permission for an interlocutory appeal pursuant to Rule 9, Tenn.R.App.P. The trial court granted the motion, stating that "there [do] not appear to be any reported decisions on this topic since Shelton was decided in 1978[; and it] would be proper to have the question determined as to whether a cause of action actually exists under the facts of this case before convening a trial."

The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court. The intermediate court reasoned that because Camper's alleged emotional injuries occurred after the accident, when he saw Ms. Taylor's body in the wreckage, the plaintiff failed to provide evidence that he was in fear for his own safety--one of the Shelton elements for recovering for mental injuries. The Court also stated that the plaintiff failed to satisfy another requirement enunciated in Shelton--that the plaintiff have a "close relationship" with the deceased. In the instant case, the court said, there was no proof that Camper and Ms. Taylor had such a relationship. Because it determined that the plaintiff failed to satisfy the Shelton requirements for a prima facie case of negligent infliction of emotional distress, the Court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment.

Camper then filed an application for permission to appeal pursuant to Rule 11, Tenn.R.App.P. We granted the application to address these important issues of Tennessee tort law.

I.

The first issue for our consideration concerns the viability of Camper's claim against both defendants for his emotional damages. Because the law of negligent infliction of emotional distress is one of the most disparate and confusing areas of tort law, we believe that it would be useful to briefly survey the approaches used by other jurisdictions before turning to a discussion of the germane Tennessee cases.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress Law in General

Any survey of the law in this area must begin with a clear and frank recognition that the law of negligent infliction of emotional distress, however it is formulated in a specific jurisdiction, is fundamentally concerned with striking a balance between two opposing objectives: first, promoting the underlying purpose of negligence law--that of compensating persons who have sustained emotional injuries attributable to the wrongful conduct of others; and second, avoiding the trivial or fraudulent claims that have been thought to be inevitable due to the subjective nature of these injuries. The tension produced by this ongoing attempt to winnow out invalid claims at the summary judgment level has caused inconsistency and incoherence in the law; indeed, as the Washington Supreme Court aptly stated some years ago, "any attempt at a consistent exegesis of the authorities is likely to break down in embarrassed perplexity." Hunsley v. Giard, 87 Wash.2d 424, 553 P.2d 1096, 1098 (1976).

The first attempt by the courts to mediate between these competing concerns took the form of the classic "physical impact" rule. Under this rule, which was formulated in Britain in the mid to late nineteenth century, see Lynch v. Knight, 9 H.L.C. 577 (1861); Victorian Ry. Comm's v. Coultas, 13 A.C. 222 (P.C.1888), a plaintiff may not recover for emotional injuries unless he or she suffered an actual physical impact or contemporaneous physical injury caused by the defendant's negligence. In other words, if the defendant's negligence causes both a physical impact or injury and emotional distress then the plaintiff may recover damages not only for the physical injury but also for the emotional distress. Although the physical impact rule was overturned in Britain only thirteen years after Victorian Ry. Comm's was decided, see Dulieu v. White & Sons, 2 K.B. 669 (D.C.1901), it had already been adopted in the United States in New York and in Massachusetts. Mitchell v. Rochester Ry. Co. 151 N.Y. 107, 45 N.E. 354 (1896); Spade v. Lynn & B.R. Co., 168 Mass. 285, 47 N.E. 88 (1897). The physical impact rule was also adopted in a number of other jurisdictions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See Archibald H. Throckmorton, Damages for Fright, 34 Harv.L.Rev. 260, 264, 265 (1921).

Three principal reasons were usually advanced by courts in support of the classic physical impact rule:

The first deals with medical science's difficulty in proving causation between the claimed damages and the alleged fright. The second involves the fear of fraudulent or exaggerated claims. Finally, there is the concern that such a rule [allowing recovery without a physical injury] will precipitate a veritable flood of litigation.

Niederman v. Brodsky, 436 Pa. 401, 261 A.2d 84, 85 (1970) (abandoning the requirement of a physical impact as a...