Oberreuter v. Orion Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 January 1984
• Docket Number: No. 69198,69198
• Citation: 342 N.W.2d 492
• Parties: Richard OBERREUTER, Plaintiff, Violet Oberreuter, Plaintiff-Appellant, Thomas Oberreuter and Todd Oberreuter, Plaintiffs, v. ORION INDUSTRIES, INC., d/b/a Antenna Specialists Co., Defendant, Mid-State Distributing Company, Defendant-Appellee, Business Radio Sales & Service, Inc., and Benton County Electric Cooperative Association, Defendants.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 492

342 N.W.2d 492

Richard OBERREUTER, Plaintiff Violet Oberreuter, Plaintiff-Appellant Thomas Oberreuter and Todd Oberreuter, Plaintiffs, v. ORION INDUSTRIES, INC., d/b/a Antenna Specialists Co., Defendant Mid-State Distributing Company, Defendant-Appellee Business Radio Sales & Service, Inc., and Benton County Electric Cooperative Association, Defendants.

No. 69198.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 18, 1984.

William Sidney Smith, Gary A. Robinson, William B. Serangeli, and Robert A. Royal of Smith, Schneider & Stiles, P.C., Des Moines, for plaintiff-appellant.

John A. McClintock and Richard G. Blane II of Hansen, McClintock & Riley, Des Moines, for defendant-appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C.J., and UHLENHOPP, HARRIS, McCORMICK and WOLLE, JJ.

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

In this interlocutory appeal from a ruling sustaining a motion to dismiss, plaintiff Violet Oberreuter asks us to expand our holding in Barnhill v. Davis, 300 N.W.2d 104 (Iowa 1981), and recognize her claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress arising out of injuries to her husband and son, even though she was neither a witness nor a bystander to the injury-causing incident. We deny her request and affirm trial court's ruling striking from her petition allegations based on this cause of action.

This case was brought by a father and son burned when a citizens band antenna they were handling came near to or in contact with an electrical transmission line; a son who was a bystander; and this plaintiff wife and mother (hereafter referred to as sole plaintiff) who asserts claims based on loss of consortium and the claims at issue here. Various counts alleged negligence, breach of warranty and strict liability against several defendants.

Defendant Mid-State Distributing Company moved under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 104(b) to dismiss plaintiff's claims based on negligent infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiff argued she was a reasonably foreseeable and direct victim of defendants' allegedly negligent acts, to whom defendants owed a duty of care, despite the fact that she was neither a witness nor a bystander when her husband and son sustained injuries. Defendant Mid-State contended plaintiff's failure to meet the elements specified for recovery in Barnhill, 300 N.W.2d at 108, precluded plaintiff's emotional distress claims. Trial court sustained the motion, leaving plaintiff with her claims for loss of consortium. In this appeal plaintiff and Mid-State advance the same arguments they made in district court.

I. We need not duplicate our effort in Barnhill, where we thoroughly analyzed and traced the history of the cause of action that, under certain conditions, may be brought by a witness-bystander for negligent infliction of emotional distress. Later, in Walker v. Clark Equipment Co., 320 N.W.2d 561 (Iowa 1982), responding to certified questions, we reaffirmed the Barnhill principles, holding they applied in cases grounded in strict liability and warranty. The appeal before us would require us to retreat from the requirement that the plaintiff be a bystander and witness the peril of the related victim, and the further requirement that the emotional distress result "from a direct emotional impact from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident, as contrasted with learning of the accident from others after its occurrence." Barnhill, 300 N.W.2d at 108.

Our examination of decisions from other jurisdictions discloses no trend toward discarding the above requirements. California, following its seminal decision in Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal.2d 728, 441 P.2d 912, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72 (1968), has had the most experience with this remedy. In a few instances California courts have permitted the claim where the emotionally distressed plaintiff arrived on the scene very soon after the incident and before removal of the victim, or, where the plaintiff, although present, did not actually see the injury occur. See Krouse v. Graham, 19 Cal.3d 59, 76, 562 P.2d 1022, 1031, 137 Cal.Rptr. 863, 872 (1977) (husband sitting in auto did not see his wife struck, but knew her location beside the car, observed defendant's speeding car, and realized car must have struck wife); Nazaroff v. Superior Court, 80 Cal.App.3d 553, 566, 145 Cal.Rptr. 657, 664 (1978) (mother heard shout and arrived in time to see drowning son pulled from neighbor's swimming pool); Archibald v. Braverman, 275 Cal.App.2d 253, 256, 79 Cal.Rptr. 723, 725 (1969) (within moments of explosion, mother arrived to render aid to maimed and bloody son).

In other decisions California courts have unbendingly enforced the Dillon requirements, disallowing claims on facts more favorable than those asserted here. See Justus v. Atchison, 19 Cal.3d 564, 585, 565 P.2d 122, 135-36, 139 Cal.Rptr. 97, 110-11 (1977) (father in delivery room observed difficult birth, but did not see or sense injury to infant, shock sustained when later informed of infant's death); Madigan v. City of Santa Ana, 145 Cal.App.3d 607, 611, 193 Cal.Rptr. 593, 596 (1983) (mother and stepfather arrived at auto collision scene within fifteen minutes and before removal of victim's body); Hathaway v. Superior Court, 112 Cal.App.3d 728, 736, 169 Cal.Rptr. 435, 440 (1980) (parents found electrocuted and dying son within a minute or two from the time of the accident); Arauz v. Gerhardt, 68 Cal.App.3d 937, 949, 137 Cal.Rptr. 619, 627 (1977) (plaintiff arrived on scene within five minutes from the time her son was struck by auto, and before his removal); Powers v. Sissoev, 39 Cal.App.3d 865, 873-74, 114 Cal.Rptr. 868, 872 (1974) (mother saw injured daughter in hospital thirty to sixty minutes following accident); Deboe v. Horn, 16 Cal.App.3d 221, 224, 94 Cal.Rptr. 77, 79 (1971) (wife first saw injured husband in hospital emergency room, where she observed and was told he was totally paralyzed).

An examination of opinions from jurisdictions other than California discloses no...