Knaub v. Gotwalt

220 A.2d 646, 422 Pa. 267, 1966 Pa. LEXIS 559

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: June 24, 1966
• Docket: Appeal, 37
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice Bell,

This is an appeal from the Order of the Court of Common Pleas which sustained defendant’s preliminary objections to plaintiffs’ complaint in trespass which claimed damages for mental shock and anguish.

Plaintiffs in this trespass action were the mother, father, and sister of a young boy who was struck and killed by defendant’s automobile. Decedent and his sister were crossing a highway when defendant struck and killed him, hurling his body some 60 feet. The sister was untouched, although she was standing only three feet from her brother when he was killed. The parents of the decedent were sitting in a parked car just twenty-five feet from the accident, and they as well as the sister observed this tragic event and naturally they all suffered extreme mental shock and anguish.

In order to recover, plaintiffs urge us to overrule a long line of prior decisions of this Court which admittedly cover and control their case.

This Court has consistently held: “The rule is long and well established in Pennsylvania that there can be no recovery of damages for injuries resulting from fright or nervous shock or mental or emotional disturbances or distress, unless they are accompanied by physical injury or physical impact: Koplin v. Louis K. Liggett Co., 322 Pa. 333, 185 A. 744; Ewing v. Pittsburgh C. & St. L. Ry. Co., 147 Pa. 40, 23 A. 340; Fox v. Borkey, 126 Pa. 164; Huston v. Freemansburg Borough, 212 Pa. 548, 61 A. 1022; Morris v. Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad Co., 228 Pa. 198, 77 A. 445; Howarth v. Adams Express Company, 269 Pa. 280, 112 A. 2d 536; Hess v. Philadelphia Transportation Co., 358 Pa. 144, 56 A. 2d 89; Potere v. Philadelphia, 380 Pa. 581, 112 A. 2d 100; Gefter v. Rosenthal, 384 Pa. 123, 119 A. 2d 250.” Bosley v. Andrews, 393 Pa. 161, 164, 142 A. 2d 263. This rule was reaffirmed as recently as Cucinotti v. Ortmann, 399 Pa. 26, 159 A. 2d 216.

This rule applies even where the complaining party seeking relief was not merely a nearby witness but the actual victim of the alleged negligent or frightening conduct. Bosley v. Andrews, 393 Pa., supra.

If we permitted recovery in a case such, as this, our Courts would be swamped by a virtual avalanche of cases for damages for many situations and cases hitherto unrecoverable in Pennsylvania. As we said in Bosley v. Andrews, 393 Pa., supra (pp. 168-169) : “To allow recovery for fright, fear, nervous shock, humiliation, mental or emotional distress — with all the disturbances and illnesses which accompany or result therefrom — where there has been no physical injury or impact, would open a Pandora’s box. A plaintiff might be driving her car alertly or with her mind preoccupied, when a sudden or unexpected or exceptionally loud noise of an automobile horn behind or parallel with her car, or a sudden loud and unexpected fire engine bell or siren, or a sudden unexpected frightening buzz-sawing noise, or an unexpected explosion from blasting or dynamiting, or an unexpected nerve-wracking noise produced by riveting on a street, or the shrill and unexpected blast of a train at a spot far from a crossing, or the witnessing of a horrifying accident, or the approach of a car near or over the middle line, even though it is withdrawn to its own side in ample time to avoid an accident, or any one of a dozen other everyday events, can cause or aggravate fright or nervous shock or emotional distress or nervous tension or mental disturbance. Such an event, if compensable, may cause normal people, as well as nervous persons and persons who are mentally disturbed or mentally ill, to honestly believe that the sudden and unexpected event caused them fright or nervous shock or nervous tension with subsequent emotional distress or suffering or pain or miscarriage or heart attack, or some kind of disease. In most cases, it would be impossible for medical science to prove that these subjective symptoms could not possibly have resulted from or been aggravated or precipitated by fright or nervous shock or nervous tension or emotional disturbance or distress, each of which can in turn produce an ulcer or headaches or fainting spells or, under some circumstances, a heart attach, or a serious disease. For every wholly genuine and deserving claim, there would likely be a tremendous number of illusory or imaginative or ‘faked’ ones. Medical science, we repeat, could not prove that these could not have been caused or precipitated or aggravated by defendant’s alleged negligent act.”

We cannot permit such chaos to permeate our law of negligence.

*

Order affirmed.

Mr. Justice Cohen and Mr. Justice Eagen concur in the result.

Pennsylvania’s rule is consistent with that of the following jurisdictions: Amaya v. Home Ice, Fuel & Supply Company, 29 Cal. Rptr. 33, 379 P. 2d 513 (1963) ; Waube v. Warrington, 216 Wis. 603, 258 N.W. 497 (1935); and Resavage v. Davies, 199 Md. 479, 86 A. 2d 879 (1952).

The law in the area of attempted recovery for mental suffering unaccompanied by physical injury or impact has been thoroughly examined by many jurisdictions in this Country. Virtually no jurisdiction permits recovery in the factual situation in the present suit where the person who allegedly is suffering an emotional upset is merely a witness to the negligent conduct and not the object or target of the defendant. See lengthy article in 18 A.L.R. 2d 220 for a complete discussion of that area.

Where the emotional upset is intentionally inflicted, most jurisdictions permit recovery. A number of jurisdictions require contemporaneous physical impact to permit recovery in this area. Among those jurisdictions are Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. At least three jurisdictions — Connecticut, Texas and Wisconsin — have permitted recovery for mental and emotional upset unaccompanied by physical impact or injury.

Interestingly enough, in those situations where recovery is permitted for emotional upset, absent physical injury or impact, most of the factual situations deal with mothers in a state of pregnancy, gee, for example, the early case of Hill v. Kimball, 76 Texas 210, 13 S.W. 59 (1890). An interesting and excellent discussion of this entire area may be found in 64 A.L.R. 2d 100.