D'Amicol v. Alvarez Shipping Co., Inc.

• Citation: 31 Conn.Supp. 164,326 A.2d 129
• Decision Date: 20 September 1973
• Docket Number: No. 149900,149900
• Parties: Patricia D'AMICOL, Administratrix, el al. v. ALVAREZ SHIPPING CO., INC., et al.
• Court: Superior Court of Connecticut

Page 129

326 A.2d 129

31 Conn.Supp. 164

Patricia D'AMICOL, Administratrix, el al. v. ALVAREZ SHIPPING CO., INC., et al.

No. 149900.

Superior Court of Connecticut, Fairfield County.

Sept. 20, 1973.

Friedman & Friedman, Bridgeport, for plaintiffs.

Mellitz, Krentzman & Newman, Bridgeport, for defendants.

LEVINE, Judge.

The defendants have filed a motion to correct the complaint by deleting two paragraphs. The motion request that both paragraphs, which contain allegations of shock and fright to the mother and the father from witnessing the death of their young son, be deleted inasmuch as shock and fright are not recoverable items of damage under Connecticut law. The defendants cite Strazza v. McKittrick, 146 Conn. 714, 719, 156 A.2d 149, and Lessard v. Tarca, 20 Conn.Sup. 295, 133 A.2d 625. Both cases stand for the proposition that a person may not recover for injuries occasioned by fear of threatened harm or injury to the person or property of another. 'Even where a plaintiff has suffered physical injury in the accident, there can be no recovery for nervous shock and mental anguish caused by the sight of injury or threatened harm to another.' Strazza v. McKittrick, supra, 146 Conn. 719, 156 A.2d 152. 'The general rule that a plaintiff cannot recover damages for nervous shock or mental anguish at sight of injury to another applies even though the plaintiff also has suffered physical injuries in the same accident.' Note, 18 A.L.R.2d 220, 234; Lessard v. Tarca, supra, 20 Conn.Sup. 297, 133 A.2d 625.

In recent developments in the law, two California cases point out that the better rule is that such damages are recoverable. Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal.2d 728, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, and Archibald v. Braverman, 275 Cal.App.2d 253, 75 Cal.Rptr. 723. The language of the Dillon case is repeated here and incorporated herein, since this court is persuaded by the force of the reasoning: 'In the absence of 'overriding policy consideration(s) . . . foreseeability of risk (is) of . . . primary importance in establishing the element of duty.' (Grafton v. Mollica (1965) 231 Cal.App.2d 860, 865, 42 Cal.Rptr. 306 . . .. See also McEvoy v. American Pool Corp. (1948) 32 Cal.2d 295, 195 P.2d 783 . . .; Hergenrether v. East (1964) 61 Cal.2d 440, 39 Cal.Rptr. 4, 393 P.2d 164 . . .. As a classic opinion states: 'The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed.' (Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co. (1928) 248 N.Y. 339, 344, 162 N.E. 99 . . ..) Defendant owes a duty, in the sense of a potential liability for damages, only with respect to those risks or hazards whose likelihood made the conduct unreasonably dangerous, and hence negligent, in the first instance. (See Keeton, Legal Cause in the Law of Torts (1963) 18-20; Seavey, Mr. Justice Cardozo and the Law of Torts (1939) 52 Harv.L.Rev. 372; Seavey, Principles of Torts (1942) 56 Harv.L.Rev. 72.)

'Harper and James state the prevailing view. The obligation turns on whether 'the offending conduct foreseeably involved unreasonably great risk of harm to the interest of someone other than the actor. . . . (T)he obligation to refrain from . . . particular conduct is owed 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. Duty, in other words, is measured by the scope of the risk which negligent conduct foreseeably entails.' (2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts . . . (1956) p. 1018; fns. omitted.)

'This foreseeable risk may be of two types. The first class involves actual physical impact. A second type of risk applies to the instant situation. 'In other cases, however, plaintiff is outside the zone of physical risk (or there is no risk of physical impact at all), but bodily injury or sickness is brought on by emotional disturbance which in turn is caused by defendant's conduct. Under general principles recovery should be had in such a case if defendant should foresee fright or shock severe enough to cause substantial injury in a person normally constituted. Plaintiff would then be within the zone of risk in very much the same way as are plaintiffs to whom danger is extended by acts of third persons, or forces of nature, or their own responses (where these things are foreseeable).' (2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, supra, at pp. 1035-1036; fns. omitted) ¹

'Since the chief element in determining whether defendant owes a duty or an obligation to plaintiff is the foreseeability of the risk, that factor will be of prime concern in every case. Because it is inherently interwined with foreseeability such duty or obligation must necessarily be adjudicated only upon a case-by-case basis. We cannot now predetermine defendant's obligation in every situation by a fixed category; no immutable rule can establish the extent of that obligation for every circumstance of the future. We can, however, define guidelines which will aid in the resolution of such an issue as the instant one.

' We note, first, that we deal here with a case in which plaintiff suffered a shock which resulted in physical injury and we confine our ruling to that case. In determining, in such a case, whether defendant should reasonably foresee the injury to plaintiff, or, in other terminology, whether defendant owes plaintiff a duty of due care, the courts will take into account such factors as the following: (1) Whether plaintiff was located near the scene of the accident as contrasted with one who was a distance away from it. (2) Whether the shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon plaintiff from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident, as contrasted with learning of the accident from others after its occurrence. (3) Whether plaintiff and the victim were closely related, as contrasted with an absence of any relationship or the presence of only a distant relationship.

'The evaluation of these factors will indicate the degree of the defendant's foreseeability: obviously defendant is more likely to foresee that a mother who...