AALAR, Ltd., Inc. v. Francis

• Decision Date: 17 April 1998
• Citation: 716 So.2d 1141
• Parties: AALAR, LTD., INC. v. C.J. FRANCIS and F.N. Francis. 1961560.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 1141

716 So.2d 1141

AALAR, LTD., INC. v. C.J. FRANCIS and F.N. Francis.

1961560.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

April 17, 1998.

Rehearing Denied June 12, 1998.

John D. Gleissner of Gleissner, Stallings & Rogers, Birmingham, for appellant.

James L. North and J. Timothy Francis of James L. North & Associates, Birmingham, for appellees.

HOUSTON, Justice.

One of the defendants below, AALAR, Ltd., Inc. ("AALAR"), appeals from a judgment entered on a $60,000 jury verdict for the plaintiffs, C.J. Francis and his mother, F.N. Francis, in this action based on allegations of negligence and wantonness. We reverse and remand.

The pertinent evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, indicates the following: AALAR, a Georgia corporation, is in the business of renting automobiles to the public. In Birmingham, AALAR does business as Birmingham Rent-A-Car; in Atlanta, it does business as Atlanta Rent-a-car. After one of AALAR's automobiles was stolen from one of its Atlanta branches in November 1995, the manager of that branch, Pandora Evans, reported the theft to the Atlanta Police Department. In accordance with standard procedure, the Atlanta Police Department listed the automobile on the National Crime Information Center ("NCIC") computer as a stolen vehicle. Evans was aware that this listing would be made. The stolen automobile was later discovered abandoned in Huntsville, Alabama. After being notified that the automobile had been located, Evans contacted AALAR's Birmingham area manager, Bill Moore, and requested that someone from one of the Birmingham branches retrieve the automobile. Moore had the automobile brought to Birmingham on or about November 27, 1995, where it was serviced and immediately placed back into the rental pool at one of the Birmingham branches. Both Moore and Evans were aware that the automobile's listing on the NCIC computer needed to be removed, and they both made several attempts to have that done. Moore contacted the Birmingham Police Department and was informed by a representative of that department that the Atlanta Police Department would have to remove the listing. Moore relayed this information to Evans and asked her to handle the matter in Atlanta. Evans contacted the Atlanta Police Department and was told that it would not remove the listing until someone with that department had actually seen the automobile and had prepared a recovery report. Evans relayed this information to Moore. Although each of them had had success in the past in removing various NCIC listings by telephone, both Moore and Evans were aware that the automobile's listing would not be removed from the NCIC computer until the automobile was brought to the Atlanta Police Department for proper processing. The evidence suggests that Moore and Evans each thought the other was handling the matter and that after a while the matter just "slipped through the cracks," as Moore put it. However, although he had no reason to think the proper steps had been taken to remove the listing from the NCIC computer, having received no confirmation from a police department or from Evans that the listing had been removed, Moore immediately rented the automobile; he continued to rent it and rented it numerous times until April 1, 1996, when he rented it to F.N. Francis. Both F.N. Francis and C.J. Francis are listed on the rental contract as authorized drivers of the automobile. Evans was not aware that Moore had begun renting the automobile while it was still listed on the NCIC computer.

At approximately 1:00 a.m. on April 2, 1996, the automobile caught the attention of a police officer with the City of Trussville, when the officer observed the driver of the automobile, whom he knew to be C.J. Francis, remain longer than he thought was normal at a stop sign. The officer had the automobile's tag number checked on the NCIC computer. Because he knew where C.J. Francis lived, the officer did not follow him. When the officer later learned that the automobile he had seen was listed as stolen, he and several other police officers went to F.N. Francis's house, at approximately 3:00 a.m., and demanded entry to question her son, C.J. Francis. The officers remained in the house for 15 to 20 minutes; however, they stayed on the street in front of the house for several hours waiting on a truck to come and tow the automobile away. At one point while the officers were inside the house questioning the plaintiffs, C.J. Francis went outside to retrieve the rental papers from the glove compartment of the automobile. When he did this, an officer who had been assigned to secure and watch the automobile, being unsure of C.J. Francis's intentions, momentarily pulled his gun. Neither C.J. Francis nor F.N. Francis suffered any physical injury and neither was charged with a crime.

The Francises sued AALAR, alleging that Moore and Evans had acted negligently or wantonly in failing to have the listing on the NCIC computer removed before the automobile was rented to F.N. Francis on April 1, 1996. The plaintiffs claimed both compensatory damages (for emotional distress only) and punitive damages. They also sued Moore, the City of Trussville, and two Trussville police officers; they did not sue Evans. The City of Trussville and its police officers settled with the plaintiffs for $5,000 and were dismissed. At trial, the court denied AALAR's motion for a judgment as a matter of law and submitted both of the claims (negligence and wantonness) to the jury. The jury was instructed that it could find against AALAR even if it did not find Moore's conduct to be culpable, provided it was satisfied that some employee of AALAR had acted negligently or wantonly. The jury found for Moore, but against AALAR; it awarded each plaintiff $30,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress. AALAR appealed.

AALAR presents two issues for our review:

1) Whether AALAR was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law with respect to both the negligence claim and the wantonness claim, on the ground that under Alabama law a plaintiff cannot recover compensatory damages for emotional distress absent some evidence that the plaintiff suffered physical injury; and

2) Whether AALAR was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law on the ground that the plaintiffs' evidence was not sufficient to support a verdict in the plaintiffs' favor.

With regard to the first issue, AALAR contends that the plaintiffs' negligence claim was a claim alleging the negligent infliction of emotional distress, and that Alabama does not recognize such a cause of action. AALAR argues that damages for emotional distress are not recoverable in Alabama in actions based on allegations of negligence and wantonness, absent evidence of some corresponding physical injury. The plaintiffs contend that they did not attempt to claim damages based on a negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress cause of action. They argue, instead, that they claimed damages based on negligence and wantonness--recognized common law causes of action--and that compensatory damages for emotional distress are recoverable in negligence and wantonness actions, even when there is no evidence of a corresponding physical injury. After examining the complaint and considering the arguments of the parties, we conclude that the trial court properly denied AALAR's motion for a judgment as a matter of law with respect to C. J. Francis's claim, a motion based on the ground that he sought to recover compensatory damages for emotional distress in the absence of any evidence of a corresponding physical injury.

Alabama, historically, did not permit the recovery of compensatory damages for emotional distress in a negligence action, absent some evidence of a corresponding physical injury. However, in Taylor v. Baptist Medical Center, Inc., 400 So.2d 369 (Ala.1981), this Court specifically rejected that long-standing rule, stating that "to continue to require physical injury caused by culpable tortious conduct, when mental suffering may be equally recognizable standing alone, would be an adherence to procrustean principles which have little or no resemblance to medical realities." 400 So.2d at 374. In Taylor, the plaintiff's action against her physician was based on allegations that the physician had negligently failed to attend during her labor and her delivery of a child who either was stillborn or died within moments of birth. The plaintiff claimed no actual physical injury; she argued, instead, that she had suffered emotional distress as the result of going through an apparently difficult and painful labor and delivery without the personal assistance of her physician. This Court recognized the plaintiff's claim and reversed the summary judgment the trial court had entered in favor of the physician.

Recently, in Flagstar Enterprises, Inc. v. Davis, 709 So.2d 1132 (Ala.1997), this Court, citing Taylor, allowed the plaintiff to proceed on her claim for damages for emotional distress, based on allegations that a Hardee's restaurant had negligently served her food that had been tainted with human blood. Although Taylor held, and Flagstar recognized, that a physical injury is no longer a prerequisite to the recovery of damages for emotional distress in a negligence action, neither of those decisions was intended to establish a new and independent tort action for negligently inflicted emotional distress. Since Taylor, this Court has stated repeatedly that such an independent tort does not exist in Alabama. See Allen v. Walker, 569 So.2d 350 (Ala.1990); Reserve National Ins. Co. v. Crowell, 614 So.2d 1005 (Ala.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 824, 114 S.Ct. 84, 126 L.Ed.2d 52 (1993); Fitch v. Voit, 624 So.2d 542, n. 3 (Ala.1993); Gideon v. Norfolk Southern Corp., 633 So.2d 453 (Ala.1994); Morris v. Merritt Oil Co., 686 So.2d 1139, 1146, n. 2 (Ala.1996). These statements illustrate that this Court has adhered to the principle that negligently causing...