Sanfilippo v. Children's Hospital

24 Pa. D. & C.3d 517, 1982 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 289
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County
DecidedJuly 22, 1982
Docketno. GD 81-11213
StatusPublished

This text of 24 Pa. D. & C.3d 517 (Sanfilippo v. Children's Hospital) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sanfilippo v. Children's Hospital, 24 Pa. D. & C.3d 517, 1982 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 289 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1982).

Opinion

FINKELHOR, J.,

The above captioned wrongful death and survival action, based upon medical malpractice and brought by Thomas F. Sanfilippo and Ingrid L. Sanfilippo and Thomas F. Sanfilippo, Administrator of the Estate of Anthony Paul Sanfilippo, comes before the court on the preliminary objections of all defendants in the [518]*518nature of a demurrer to Count VIII of the complaint, alleging the emotional distress of the parents of the deceased child.

The crux of the preliminary objections is whether Count VIII set forth a valid cause of action for the negligent infliction of emotional distress under Sinn v. Burd, 486 Pa. 146, 404 A. 2d 672 (1979); Section 436 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.

It is well settled that preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer admit as true all well and clearly pleaded facts and all inferences fairly deducible therefrom: Yaniav. Bigan, 397 Pa. 316,155 A. 2d 343 (1959). The complaint must be examined to determine whether it sets forth a cause of action which, if proved, would entitle the party to recovery under Pennsylvania law.

The relevant portions of the pleadings, contained in Count VIII and specifically paragraphs 54 and 55, state as follows:

“54. That solely due to the negligence, carelessness and recklessness of the Defendants, the Plaintiffs were caused to suffer severe emotional and psychological injury and damage when they sought to feed the minor, Plaintiffs decedent, a six week old infant early in the morning of May 9,1979, and discovered the cold body of this deceased infant.
“55. That the Plaintiffs suffered severe emotional and psychological shock and injury from the aforesaid incident solely due to the negligence, carelessness and recklessness of the Defendants as herein above set forth, said negligence being incorporated by reference herein with full force and effect as if set forth at length.”

FACTS

The facts of this unfortunate matter are brief. [519]*519Plaintiffs Thomas F. Sanfilippo and Ingrid L. Sanfilippo were the parents of the minor decedent Anthony Paul Sanfilippo and Thomas is Administrator of the Estate of the deceased minor. Defendants include the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the physicians, nurses and social workers employed by and on the staff of said Hospital. Defendant Gursky is a licensed physician in private practice.

Anthony Sanfilippo was admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh on May 3, 1979, for serious head injuries resulting from a fall earlier in the day. On May 5, 1979, the infant was released and taken home by plaintiffs parents. In the early morning of May 9, 1979, plaintiff-mother who was nursing the child, found the dead body of her son when she went to feed him. Both parents claim damages resulting from the emotional shock of the discovery of the dead infant.

In other counts of the complaint, plaintiffs allege both omissions to act by failure to properly diagnose and overt acts of negligence, including the improper discharge of the child from the hospital while he suffered from severe life-threatening head injuries and the failure to warn the parents of the critical condition of the child.

It is the position of defendants that Sinn v. Burd, supra, requires that plaintiffs contemporaneously observe or witness the accident, event or negligence to one’s “relative” in order to state a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress and that the observation of the death of the child is not sufficient to substitute for the observation of the negligent act.

It is plaintiffs’ position that, under the doctrine of “foreseeability” adopted in Sinn v. Burd, supra, the observation of the act of negligence is not required. [520]*520Plaintiffs contend that the child’s death and the parents’ shock upon viewing the corpse were both foreseeable by defendants and come within the parameters of Sinn v. Burd, supra. According to plaintiffs, the observation of the act of negligence is no longer a limiting factor for the recovery of damages due to emotional distress.

In order to resolve this issue, it is necessary to consider briefly the history of the tort of emotional distress in Pennsylvania.

NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS

Historically, courts have been reluctant to allow recovery for the negligent infliction of emotional distress as an independent tort action. Their reluctance, as with many “novel” causes of action, was based on a fear that “the courts would be swamped by a virtual avalanche of cases,” Knaub v. Gotwalt, 422 Pa. 267, 271, 220 A. 2d 646 (1966). Inherent in this reluctance was also a concern with fraudulent and spurious claims arising from the difficulty of proof and the actual ascertainment of injury was viewed as highly speculative. However, this barrier to recovery was overcome in cases where an obvious casual link could be shown between a physical injury sustained by the plaintiff and the ensuing emotional distress.

The “impact rule,” for decades the precedent in Pennsylvania, allowed recovery for negligently inflicted emotional distress, when accompanied by actual physical injury as a result of the impact to the complainant: Bosley v. Andrews, 393 Pa. 161, 142 A. 2d 263 (1958); Potere v. Philadelphia, 380 Pa. 581, 112 A. 2d 100 (1955); Huston v. Freemansburg Borough, 212 Pa. 548, 61 A. 1022(1905); [521]*521Ewing v. Pittsburgh Railway Co., 147 Pa. 40, 23 A. 340 (1892).

The arbitrary and frequently unjust results of applying the “impact rule” were acknowledged in many jurisdictions by the adoption of the “zone of danger” test. This doctrine permitted recovery for emotional distress and the resulting physical consequences if the complainant was in the immediate zone of danger caused by another’s negligence. The requirement of actual physical impact was abolished when the fear of possible injury could be established: Robb v. Pennsylvania R.R., 58 Del. 454, 210 A. 2d 709 (1965); Falzone v. Busch, 45 N.J. 559, 214 A. 2d 12 (1965): Niederman v. Brodsky, 436 Pa. 401, 261 A. 2d 84 (1970).

In 1979, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Sinn v. Burd, 486 Pa. 146, 404 A. 2d 672 (1979), modified the zone of danger test and based upon the “foreseeability” standard developed by California in Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal. 2d 728, 441 P. 2d 912 (1968), allowed bystander recovery.

In Sinn, a mother witnessed an automobile strike and kill her minor child while she herself was outside of the zone of danger created by the driver’s negligence. The court held that a cause of action for which relief could be granted, did exist because emotional distress on the part of the mother was a reasonably foreseeable injury.

Justice Nix stated as follows:

“The restrictiveness of the zone of danger test is glaringly apparent where it is allowed to deny recovery to a parent who has suffered emotional harm from witnessing a tortious assault upon the person of his or her minor child. . . . the emotional impact upon a parent witnessing the killing of a minor child is at least as great and as legitimate as the apprehension that is inspired by a plaintiff [522]*522being personally within the zone of danger.” 486 Pa. at 170.

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Related

Dillon v. Legg
441 P.2d 912 (California Supreme Court, 1968)
Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co.
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Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals
616 P.2d 813 (California Supreme Court, 1980)
Falzone v. Busch
214 A.2d 12 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1965)
Yania v. Bigan
155 A.2d 343 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1959)
Amader v. Johns-Manville Corp.
514 F. Supp. 1031 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1981)
Jansen v. Children's Hospital Medical Center
31 Cal. App. 3d 22 (California Court of Appeal, 1973)
Hathaway v. Superior Court
112 Cal. App. 3d 728 (California Court of Appeal, 1980)
Cortez v. MacIas
110 Cal. App. 3d 640 (California Court of Appeal, 1980)
Niederman v. Brodsky
261 A.2d 84 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1970)
Potere v. Philadelphia
112 A.2d 100 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1955)
Knaub v. Gotwalt
220 A.2d 646 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1966)
Robb v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company
210 A.2d 709 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 1965)
Sinn v. Burd
404 A.2d 672 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1979)
Bosley v. Andrews
142 A.2d 263 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1958)
Ewing v. Pittsb. C. & St. L. Ry. Co.
23 A. 340 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1892)
Huston v. Freemansburg Borough
61 A. 1022 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1905)

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Bluebook (online)
24 Pa. D. & C.3d 517, 1982 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 289, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanfilippo-v-childrens-hospital-pactcomplallegh-1982.