Lejeune v. Rayne Branch Hosp.

• Decision Date: 05 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-CC-0575,89-CC-0575
• Parties: Mable LEJEUNE, Individually, and as Succession Representative of Estate of Rayo Lejeune v. RAYNE BRANCH HOSPITAL.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 559

556 So.2d 559

58 USLW 2489

Mable LEJEUNE, Individually, and as Succession Representative of Estate of Rayo Lejeune v. RAYNE BRANCH HOSPITAL.

No. 89-CC-0575.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 5, 1990.

Rehearing Denied March 22, 1990.

William J. Mitchell, II, Watson, Blanche, Wilson & Posner, Baton Rouge, for applicant.

Thomas E. Guilbeau, Lead Atty., Patrick L. Michot, Lafayette, for respondent.

CALOGERO, Justice.

Damages for mental pain and anguish are generally allowed in tort cases in Louisiana. ¹ Nonetheless, mental pain and anguish sustained by a person not directly injured, because of the negligent infliction of injury on a third person, is not. Black v. Carrollton R.R. Co., 10 La.Ann. 33 (1855). In the case before us, involving the latter type of mental pain and anguish claim, the district court, and the court of appeal in a lengthy and studious opinion, have ruled that Mrs. Mabel Lejeune has stated a cause of action for her own mental pain and anguish damages resulting from a series of rat bites to her hospitalized comatose husband.

We granted this writ of review sought by Rayne Branch Hospital because the rulings below are contrary to a long line of jurisprudence in this Court beginning with Black, and to determine whether Black, decided more than a century ago, should be overruled.

Mrs. Lejeune's petition claims that her husband, Rayo Lejeune, was a patient at Rayne Branch Hospital and that he suffered multiple rat bites on his body on or about September 25, 1986 because of negligence of hospital personnel, and the hospital's failure to perform its contractual obligation to provide a proper facility and clean environment. Mr. Lejeune was in a coma when this incident occurred. Mrs. Lejeune, as succession representative, claims damages for pain and suffering, disfigurement, mental anguish and humiliation on behalf of her husband and, individually, for her own mental anguish damages. She contends that she "suffered mental anguish, due to her seeing her husband having been eaten alive by a rodent."

Defendant's exception of no cause of action presupposes the truth of petitioner's allegations. However, in this case the parties' attorneys in oral argument before this Court stipulated that, for purposes of this no cause of action exception, the asserted facts would be those that Mrs. Lejeune recited at her deposition, taken on May 5, 1988.

Accordingly, the facts to be tested here by the no cause of action exception are as asserted above, but with these modifications. Mr. Lejeune was not "eaten alive", ² and she did not see her husband being bitten by the rat. Rather she came into her husband's hospital room and discovered his wounds, which had apparently been inflicted just shortly before. She was simultaneously told by the student nurse what had happened (including that the student nurse had just cleaned blood from Mr. Lejeune's wounds).

The hospital's peremptory exception of no cause of action is directed only at Mrs. Lejeune's mental anguish claim. The argument relies on several of this Court's opinions, Black included, the latest of which was rendered in 1917, and numerous court of appeal cases since that time which have followed those earlier opinions.

Black, supra, involved a claim for mental anguish damages by a father whose son was severely injured because of the negligence of employees of the defendant railroad. This Court, in declining to afford a remedy to the father, who had apparently not witnessed the injury to his son, held specifically that recovery for mental anguish because of the injuries to another would amount to "vindictive damages", not favored under our law. They also noted the public policy concern of imposing liability on the railroad industry, of such great importance to the nation at that time (the year was 1855), as well as the difficulty in assessing damages for injuries of this nature.

Black was followed by another decision of this Court which denied recovery to a parent for mental anguish because of an "offense" to her minor children. Two of plaintiff's teenage sons were arrested in the presence of their mother in Sperier v. Ott, 116 La. 1087, 41 So. 323 (1906), but later acquitted of any wrongdoing. The mother witnessed the arrest, and suffered such shock that she fainted and required hospitalization. Even though the mother later died, in part because of her severe emotional distress, the Court refused damages for her mental suffering, citing Black.

Then, in Brinkman v. St. Landry Cotton Oil Co., 118 La. 835, 43 So. 458 (1907), a father, who had not witnessed the injury but was on the defendant's premises at the time, was refused damages for the mental pain he suffered when his son was injured by the defendant's negligence.

The last case considered by this court on this issue was Kaufman v. Clark, 141 La. 316, 75 So. 65 (1917). ³ In that case, a mother sought damages for her humiliation and mental anguish because of the defendant's alleged sexual contact with the mother's minor daughter. The Court recognized that a claim for damages for mental anguish was actual and compensatory, not punitive as Black had stated, yet held that a claim for damages to one's "feelings" for injury to a third person, still living, does not exist under our law, citing Black. ⁴ This Court has not addressed the issue since Kaufman, in 1917. From then until the present we have denied writs in numerous cases in which the lower courts have followed the Black rule. In many of those cases the lower courts have criticized Black and its progeny, believing that recovery should be permitted. In several instances, the courts of appeal have urged us to reassess this Court's position regarding this issue. As earlier noted, our granting this plaintiff's writ application now affords us that opportunity.

While the law has given protection against negligent acts to the interest in security of the person and to various interests in tangible property, that is, liability for personal injury or property damage, the interest in freedom from mental disturbance has been the subject of substantial controversy. Early jurisprudence in this country allowed claims for mental anguish only if accompanied by physical injury (the "impact rule") (both where the plaintiff's claim arose from fear of injury to himself as well as where it arose from witnessing some peril or harm to another person). Recovery was denied absent "impact" because of several perceived fears. It was argued that emotional damages could not be measured monetarily, thus could not alone serve as the basis of recovery; that it would open a floodgate of litigation; and that it was too remote from the negligent act, thus, was not "proximately caused" by the defendant's act. W. Prosser & W. Keaton, Torts, Sec. 54 at 360 (5th ed. 1984).

These fears have somewhat diminished. The judiciary readily allows damages for mental pain and suffering sustained along with physical injury. There is no more difficulty in ascertaining damages when physical injury does not accompany emotional harm than when it does. Blackwell v. Oser, 436 So.2d 1293 (La.App. 4th Cir.), writ denied, 442 So.2d 453 (La.1983); Chappetta v. Bowman Transp., Inc., 415 So.2d 1019 (La.App. 4th Cir.1982). Louisiana courts have long recognized that mental anguish damages are actual damages, McGee v. Yazoo & M.V.R. Co., 206 La. 121, 19 So.2d 21 (La.1944), thus, should be redressed. In addition, medical advances of today provide greater objective proof of such damages so that it is no longer necessary to rely solely on the plaintiff's testimony of damages to allow recovery. Kolder v. State Farm Ins. Co., 520 So.2d 960, 964, n. 2 (La.App. 3d Cir.1987); Versland v. Caron Transport, 206 Mont. 313, 671 P.2d 583 (1983).

The fear that the courts may be flooded with litigation is not sufficient justification to disallow those claims that are legitimate. It is the duty of the courts to discern valid claims from fraudulent ones. Waldrop v. Vistron Corp., 391 So.2d 1274 (La.App. 1st Cir.), writ denied, 394 So.2d 281 (La.1980); Brauninger v. Ducote, 381 So.2d 1246, 1249 (La.App. 4th Cir.1979), Lemmon, J., concurring.

Other courts, early on, easily dismissed claims for mental anguish damages on a finding that the defendant's duty did not extend to this type of harm. Jilek v. Colonial Penn Ins. Co., 468 So.2d 671 (La.App. 4th Cir.1985); Gibbons v. Orleans Parish School Board, 391 So.2d 976 (La.App. 4th Cir.1980); Miles v. Illinois Central Gulf R. Co., 389 So.2d 96 (La.App. 4th Cir.), writ denied, 394 So.2d 612 (La.1980); McKey v. Dow Chemical Co., Inc., 295 So.2d 516 (La.App. 1st Cir.1974). On the other hand, several courts of appeal in this state have expressed dissatisfaction with the failure to find a duty owed by the defendant. ⁵ That dissatisfaction is based chiefly on the premise that the refusal to recognize mental anguish damages in these instances is contrary to general tort principles under La.Civil Code art. 2315, which, of course, provides that "(e)very act whatever of man that causes damage to another " should be redressed.

The blanket denial of these claims since Black has especially been criticized because the treatment of mental anguish claims for injury to a third person differs from the jurisprudential treatment of mental anguish claims for damages to one's property. See Fontenot v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 227 La. 866, 80 So.2d 845 (1955); McGee v. Yazoo & M.V.R. Co., 206 La. 121, 19 So.2d 21 (1944). The Fourth circuit expressed its dissatisfaction with that distinction in Cambrice v. Fern Supply Co., Inc., 285 So.2d 863 (La.App. 4th Cir.1973), while finding it necessary to refuse mental anguish damages. Writing for the court, Judge Redmann stated Thus apparently the Louisiana law is that mental suffering from injury to one's property is compensable, and mental suffering from injury to one's child is not. Here, for example, the mother's grief over the bloodied and torn...