Campbell v. Animal Quarantine Station, Division of Animal Industry, Dept. of Agriculture, State of Hawaii, Bd. of Agriculture

• Decision Date: 26 August 1981
• Docket Number: No. 6630,6630
• Citation: 632 P.2d 1066,63 Haw. 557
• Parties: Pamela CAMPBELL, Craig Campbell, Tamra Campbell, and Kelly Campbell, minors, by and through their Guardian Ad Litem, Rex Campbell, Rex Campbell, individually, and Faye Campbell, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ANIMAL QUARANTINE STATION, DIVISION OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, STATE OF HAWAII, BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, Defendants-Appellants, and John Does 1 through 25, Defendants.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 1066

632 P.2d 1066

63 Haw. 557

Pamela CAMPBELL, Craig Campbell, Tamra Campbell, and Kelly Campbell, minors, by and through their Guardian Ad Litem, Rex Campbell, Rex Campbell individually, and Faye Campbell, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ANIMAL QUARANTINE STATION, DIVISION OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, STATE OF HAWAII, BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, Defendants-Appellants and John Does 1 through 25, Defendants.

No. 6630.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Aug. 26, 1981.

Dudley G. Akama, Deputy Atty. Gen., Honolulu (Everett Cuskaden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Honolulu, on the briefs), for defendants-appellants.

Dennis W. Potts, Honolulu, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before RICHARDSON, C.J., and OGATA, MENOR, LUM and NAKAMURA, JJ.

LUM, Justice.

This is an appeal by defendant-appellant Animal Quarantine Station of the State of Hawaii from a circuit court order awarding a total of $1,000.00 to plaintiffs-appellees Mr. and Mrs. Rex Campbell and three of their four children for emotional distress suffered when the plaintiffs' dog (Princess) died in the Animal Quarantine Station. The trial court found the State liable because of its negligence in transporting Princess to a private veterinarian hospital. Although it awarded damages to plaintiffs for the loss of the dog, only the award of damages for emotional distress is at issue in this appeal. We affirm.

I.

Princess, a nine-year-old female boxer, arrived in Hawaii by air on June 6, 1975 and was transported to the Animal Quarantine Station. Princess had been owned by the plaintiffs since she was a few weeks old and had lived with the family continuously before they came to Hawaii.

Princess was given a medical examination the following day and was found to be in good health with the exception of a growth on her gums, which did not require emergency treatment. After the Animal Quarantine Station notified Mr. Campbell of the growth, he arranged to have Dr. Choy of the nearby Kapalama Pet Hospital remove it.

Two days later, Princess was one of seven animals loaded by quarantine station personnel into a van for transportation to the Kapalama Pet Hospital. It was a hot afternoon, and the van was exposed directly to the sun. There were no ventilation devices in the section of the van where the animals waited. Princess was in the hot van for at least an hour. She died of heat prostration 15 to 20 minutes after arrival at the Kapalama Pet Hospital.

None of the plaintiffs saw the dog die, nor did any of them see the deceased body of Princess. Plaintiffs heard the news of Princess' death by phone on the morning of June 10, 1975 from Dr. Choy. Upon hearing the news, all cried except the father. The trial court found that the entire family was preoccupied with Princess' death for two to three weeks after hearing the news, suffering serious emotional distress. None of the plaintiffs sought psychiatric or medical assistance as a result of the emotional distress which they suffered.

The award, totalling $1,000.00, was in varying amounts to five of the six plaintiffs for their serious emotional distress. ¹

II.

The State appeals three issues to this court:

(1) Whether plaintiffs must witness the tortious event in order to recover damages for serious mental distress;

(2) Whether medical proof or expert testimony is required to substantiate plaintiffs' claim of serious mental distress; and (3) Whether the case at bar is controlled by the holding in Rodrigues v. State, 52 Haw. 156, 472 P.2d 509 (1970), allowing recovery for serious mental distress resulting from the negligent destruction of plaintiffs' property.

Our holdings in Rodrigues v. State, supra, Leong v. Takasaki, 55 Haw. 398, 520 P.2d 758 (1974), and Kelley v. Kokua Sales and Supply, Inc., 56 Haw. 204, 532 P.2d 673 (1975), established the law of this State in the area of recovery for mental distress. We find that these cases, in particular Rodrigues and Leong, are dispositive as to the facts in the case at bar. However, before applying this law to the facts, we find it useful to review the development of Hawaii's approach to the law in this area. ²

III.

In Rodrigues v. State, supra, we permitted recovery in tort for mental distress due to the State's negligence in causing damages to plaintiffs' house. We recognized that an individual's interest in freedom from negligent infliction of serious mental distress is entitled to independent legal protection. Id. 52 Haw. at 174, 472 P.2d at 520. In making such recognition, we did not distinguish between mental distress suffered as a consequence of witnessing injury to another and that resulting from the destruction of one's own property. Rodrigues departed from the traditional standard and held that serious mental harm can be inflicted when a person endures negligently inflicted property damage.

We circumscribed such liability to serious mental distress and held that serious mental distress may be found where a reasonable person, normally constituted, would be unable to adequately cope with the mental stress engendered by the circumstances of the case. We held that the question of whether defendant is liable in any particular case will be solved by the application of general tort principles, but we also held that defendant's obligation to refrain from particular conduct is only to those who are foreseeably endangered by the conduct and only with respect to those risks or hazards whose likelihood made the conduct unreasonably dangerous. Id. at 174, 472 P.2d at 521.

Significantly, Rodrigues did not require any threshold showing of physical effects resulting from the distress. Thus, we became the first jurisdiction to allow recovery without a showing of physically manifested harm. ³

In Leong v. Takasaki, supra, this court further refined this new cause of action. In Leong the minor plaintiff was crossing the highway with his hanai-grandmother. He noticed an approaching car and stopped, but the grandmother did not. The car struck and killed her. The plaintiff suffered psychic injuries, including shock, but no physical harm.

The trial court dismissed the action on the ground that there could be no recovery for mental distress without resulting physical injury. We reversed the trial court and affirmed our previous holding in Rodrigues that mental distress did not have to manifest itself physically. We employed Rodrigues' "reasonable man" standard for determining the extent of the duty owed to the plaintiff and the issue of proximate causation. We explained that:

(W)hen it is reasonably foreseeable that a reasonable plaintiff-witness to an accident would not be able to cope with the mental stress engendered by such circumstances, the trial court should conclude that defendant's conduct is the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury and impose liability on the defendant for any damages arising from the consequences of his negligent act.

Id. 55 Haw. at 410, 520 P.2d at 765.

In Kelley v. Kokua Sales and Supply, Inc., supra, a father in California died as a result of receiving news by phone of the death of his daughter and grandchild in a highway accident which occurred in Hawaii. The crucial question in that case was whether a duty was owed to the father. We held that there was no duty owed to the father as the consequences could not be reasonably foreseen, and clearly, the father's location was too remote from the scene of the accident.

We turn now to the issues presented by the case at bar.

IV.

Defendant argues that it did not owe a duty of care to plaintiffs because the plaintiffs were neither eyewitnesses to their dog's death nor located within a reasonable distance of the accident; that it was therefore not foreseeable that severe emotional distress would be incurred by plaintiffs.

Defendant attempts to distinguish this case from Rodrigues and Leong because the plaintiffs did not witness this tortious event, arguing that this case is instead similar to Kelley. Defendant reads Rodrigues and Leong to require that the plaintiffs must actually witness the accident in order to recover.

In Kelley we were concerned with formulating a reasonable and proper limitation of the scope of the duty of care because of the potential for unmanageable and unpredictable liability. We therefore imposed a geographical limitation restricting recovery to those located within a reasonable distance from the scene of the tortious event. Our holding in that case was based upon policy considerations. Kelley's geographical consideration is not present within the facts of this case since plaintiffs and their dog were located within Honolulu.

Rather, we find that the facts of this case are similar to those in Rodrigues, a case where the plaintiffs witnessed the consequences but not the accident and were not located any further from the scene of the accident than were the plaintiffs in the current case.

Defendant also urges this court to apply the factors enunciated in Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal.2d 728, 441 P.2d 912, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72 (1968), and D'Ambra v. United States, 354 F.Supp. 810 (D.R.I.1973), modified on other grounds, 481 F.2d 14 (1st Cir. 1973). ⁴ However, in both Rodrigues and Leong, we held that the factors formulated in Dillon and D'Ambra should be utilized to determine the genuineness and degree of mental distress, rather than to bar recovery. Rodrigues set out the two considerations for recovery: one's interest in freedom from negligent infliction of foreseeable serious mental distress, and the standard of proof to be used by the trier of fact in ascertaining whether the emotional distress was genuine and serious. Thus, we did not indicate in Rodrigues, the only case dealing specifically with damage to property, a requirement that the tortious event be witnessed by the plaintiffs.

V.

Defendant's next major contention is that the trial court erred in ruling that medical testimony was not necessary to substantiate plaintiffs' claims of serious emotional distress. No medical...