Padwa v. Hadley, 19-038

• Decision Date: 15 April 1999
• Docket Number: 19-038
• Citation: 981 P.2d 1234
• Parties: DAVID J. PADWA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DRUMMOND HADLEY, Defendant-Appellee.Opinion Number: 1999-Certiorari denied,,
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

DAVID J. PADWA, Plaintiff-Appellant v DRUMMOND HADLEY, Defendant-Appellee

Docket No. 19,038

Opinion Number: 1999-NMCA-067

Certiorari denied, No. 25,740, May 25, 1999

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

Filing Date: April 15, 1999

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF HIDALGO COUNTY

Gary M. Jeffreys, District Judge

Aaron J. Wolf, White, Koch, Kelly & McCarthy, P.A., Santa Fe, NM, Jane Bloom Yohalem, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant

Robert R. Rothstein, John L. Sullivan, Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, Dahlstrom, Cron & Schoenburg, LLP, Santa Fe, NM, Gregory L. BiehlerBeall & Biehler, P.A., Albuquerque, NM, for Appellee

OPINION

BOSSON, Judge

{1} On the Court's own motion the following opinion is substituted for that filed March 17, 1999. The motion for rehearing is denied.

{2} This appeal presents novel questions regarding the torts of intentional infliction of emotional distress, and, to a lesser extent, prima facie tort. We examine the kinds of behavior that, although immoral and personally offensive, may not rise to the level of actionable civil claims under law. In this case Plaintiff Padwa seeks compensatory damages from Defendant Hadley for having engaged in a pattern of intrusive and oftentimes sexual behavior with Padwa's wife, his former wife, and his former fiance, with the intent to cause severe emotional distress and injure Padwa, allegedly without justification for his acts. After analyzing the conduct alleged and even assuming the truthfulness of all material allegations, we conclude that Padwa does not state a claim for relief in tort under New Mexico law. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's dismissal of the complaint.

BACKGROUND

{3} The following facts are alleged in Padwa's complaint and are assumed to be true for purposes of our review of an order dismissing the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Rule 1-012(B)(6) NMRA 1999. Padwa was divorced from his first wife (former wife) in New York City in 1966. In 1971, he moved away from New York to Santa Fe "because of the sorrowful nature of the divorce." While in Santa Fe he met Hadley, and they became casual friends. Padwa subsequently met another woman (wife), and the couple married in 1973.

{4} In 1981, Padwa went to New York on business. Hadley invited himself along on the trip and shared Padwa's hotel room. While in New York, Hadley began asking Padwa intrusive questions about his prior marriage which revealed a prurient interest in Padwa's private life and in his former wife. Padwa was deeply offended and told Hadley so. Padwa was still sensitive about his divorce and remained involved with his former wife because they had a daughter together. According to Padwa, he made clear to Hadley that any intrusion into the privacy of his relationship with his former wife would be extremely painful, especially considering their daughter. Later that night, Padwa returned to his hotel room close to midnight and discovered that Hadley had left a note telling Padwa that he had gone over to Padwa's ex-wife's house. Hadley returned at approximately 2:15 a.m. Padwa was incensed at Hadley's callousness and ended his friendship immediately.

{5} For the next four or five years, Hadley sought unsuccessfully to resume a friendly discourse with Padwa, but Padwa wanted nothing to do with him and told him repeatedly how disgusted he was at Hadley's behavior, how much he had hurt him, and that he wanted Hadley to stay away from him and his family. Years later in 1994, Hadley telephoned Padwa at his home in Santa Fe, and in a conciliatory gesture Padwa invited him over to his house to "let bygones be bygones." Padwa then described to Hadley how he had become separated from his wife, how he had then become engaged to another woman (ex-fiance), how he had ended the engagement for the sake of reclaiming his marriage, and finally that he and his wife were together again and fully reconciled for nearly a year. He also explained to Hadley that he continued to have a warm and platonic friendship with his ex-fiance.

{6} Within days of this conversation, Hadley initiated a sexual relationship with Padwa's wife. A few months later, Hadley sought out Padwa's ex-fiance and began a sexual relationship with her as well. Hadley told the ex-fiance about his affair with Padwa's wife, and eventually the ex-fiance told Padwa. Padwa was stunned and emotionally devastated by the information. He proceeded to divorce his wife.

{7} Padwa was outraged at Hadley's invasion of his private life. As Padwa saw it, Hadley was a sexual predator. Hadley had been told not to become involved with these women, and yet he had done so purposefully, intentionally, and with full knowledge of the severe emotional injury that would follow. In his brief to this Court, Padwa describes Hadley as a man who "repeatedly went to extraordinary lengths" to injure him, and one "who knowingly, intentionally and with mocking cruelty, targets [him], waiting for the opportunity to sexually humiliate him and to hurt him deeply." Continuing, Padwa elaborates that "[s]exual pursuit of these women was [Hadley]'s weapon of choice for attacking and hurting [him]" and that Hadley was "highly effective" in doing so. Padwa filed this lawsuit against Hadley for intentional infliction of emotional distress and, alternatively, for prima facie tort. Pursuant to Rule 1-012(B)(6), the district court dismissed both claims for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, and Padwa appeals from that dismissal.

DISCUSSION

Standard of Review

{8} The decision of the trial court to grant Hadley's Rule 12(B)(6) motion is a question of law that we review de novo. See Wilson v. Denver, 1998-NMSC-016, ¶ 13, 125 N.M. 308, 961 P.2d 153. We accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true, and resolve all doubts in favor of the sufficiency of the complaint. See Anadarko Petroleum Corp. v. Baca, 117 N.M. 167, 169, 870 P.2d 129, 131 (1994). Therefore, we must examine the legal sufficiency of Padwa's claims, based on the allegations in the complaint, to determine if Padwa is entitled to relief.

The Tort of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

{9} Initially, the court determines as a matter of law whether conduct reasonably may be regarded as so extreme and outrageous that it will permit recovery under the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. See Trujillo v. Puro, 101 N.M. 408, 414, 683 P.2d 963, 969 (Ct. App. 1984); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 cmt. h (1965). When reasonable persons may differ on that question, it is for the jury to decide, subject to the oversight of the court. See Restatement, supra. We proceed to define the parameters of what conduct may not reasonably be regarded as actionable in this context.

{10} We first addressed this tort, also known as the tort of outrage, in Mantz v. Follingstad, 84 N.M. 473, 480, 505 P.2d 68, 75 (Ct. App. 1972), and we considered, but did not take the opportunity to adopt the Restatement, because the plaintiff in that case had failed to disclose any facts that would establish a claim. See also E.X. "Javier" Acosta, The Tort of "Outrageous Conduct" in New Mexico: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Harm Without Physical Injury, 19 N.M. L. Rev. 425 (1989). We subsequently adopted the Restatement and directly applied it to a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress in both Trujillo, 101 N.M. at 414-15, 683 P.2d at 969-70, and Dominguez v. Stone, 97 N.M. 211, 214-15, 638 P.2d 423, 426-27 (Ct. App. 1981). In discussing the threshold of liability, the Restatement, supra, § 46(l) states that, "[o]ne who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the other results from it, for such bodily harm." Referring to the operative phrase "extreme and outrageous conduct," the commentary to the Restatement cautions that:

Liability has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Generally, the case is one in which the recitation of the facts to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim, "Outrageous!"

Restatement, supra, § 46 cmt. d; accord Mantz, 84 N.M. at 480, 505 P.2d at 75.

{11} By characterizing conduct as "atrocious and utterly intolerable" and "beyond all possible bounds of decency," the Restatement sets the threshold at the very highest level for conduct to be considered actionable under the tort of outrage. It recognizes that, as part of the price of personal liberty, a free and democratic society must tolerate certain offensive conduct as well as some obnoxious or morally deviant behavior. Accordingly, the mere fact that an actor knows that his conduct is insulting, or will deeply hurt another's feelings is insufficient to establish liability. See Restatement, supra, § 46 cmt. f; see also Daniel Givelber, The Right to Minimum Social Decency and the Limits of Evenhandedness: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress by Outrageous Conduct, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 42, 53 (1982). Rather than looking to the courts for relief from the emotional bruising of everyday life, "a certain toughening of the mental hide is a better protection than the law could ever be." Calvert Magruder, Mental and Emotional Disturbance in the Law of Torts, 49 Harv. L. Rev. 1033, 1035 (1936). Accordingly, caution is the watchword as we examine whether the tort of outrage ought to encompass the facts of this case.

{12} Before examining those facts, however, we emphasize one notable opinion from this Court that comes the closest to the present case and provides us with special guidance. In Hakkila v. Hakkila, 112 N.M. 172, 812...