Shaner v. Greece Central School Dist. No. 1

• Court: New York Supreme Court Appellate Division
• Citation: 51 A.D.2d 662,378 N.Y.S.2d 185
• Parties: Melinda SHANER, an Infant, by her Parent and Natural Guardian, Mary T. Shaner, and Mary T. Shaner, Individually, Respondents, v. GREECE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 1, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 16 January 1976

Page 185

378 N.Y.S.2d 185

51 A.D.2d 662

Melinda SHANER, an Infant, by her Parent and Natural Guardian, Mary T. Shaner, and Mary T. Shaner, Individually, Respondents, v. GREECE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 1, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Jan. 16, 1976.

Paul William Beltz, P.C., Robert Nichols, Buffalo, for appellant.

Smith, Murphy & Schoepperle, Frank Godson, Buffalo, for respondents.

Before MARSH, P.J., and SIMONS, MAHONEY, GOLDMAN and WITMER, JJ.

MEMORANDUM:

Defendant Greece Central School District Number One (School District) appeals from Special Term's denial of its motion to dismiss the complaint. Two causes of action are alleged, the first claiming that the School District's employees, teachers and administrators 'carelessly, recklessly and negligently allowed' the infant plaintiff's brother to commit suicide, resulting in emotional and physical damage to the plaintiff and, secondly, a cause of action by Mary T. Shaner, mother of the infant plaintiff, for medical expense incurred by the mother for her daughter.

The underlying allegations of the complaint assert that while the infant plaintiff's brother was a student at the defendant's high school the employees of the School District permitted the brother to shoot himself. Further, that defendant's employees were informed that the infant's brother had a loaded gun and that they knew of this fact one hour before the brother fatally shot himself, while sitting in the vice principal's office. Assuming, as we must, the truth of the allegations of the complaint, may the infant plaintiff recover for mental and emotional distress suffered by reason of her brother's suicide, which she did not witness and which is alleged to be the result of the negligence of the School District?

We recognize that the old principle, enunciated in Mitchell v. Rochester Ry. Co., 151 N.Y. 107, 45 N.E. 354, that there could be no recovery for injuries, physical or mental, incurred by fright negligently induced, was 'overruled' by Battalla v. State of New York, 10 N.Y.2d 237, 239, 219 N.Y.S.2d 34, 35, 176 N.E.2d 729. If the estate of the deceased brother were the plaintiff, the allegations of negligence in the complaint would be sufficient to defeat a motion to dismiss. Respondents' reliance on three Court of Appeals decisions in their brief is not well taken. Each can be distinguished on its facts from the situation we have in the instant case. In Battalla, supra, the plaintiff was the person who had been placed in the negligently secured chair lift and who suffered the the alleged severe emotional and neurological disturbances. He was the one to whom the duty of care was owed. The question involved in Johnson v. State of New York, 37 N.Y.2d 378, 372 N.Y.S.2d 638, 334 N.E.2d 590, was whether the daughter of a state hospital patient could recover for the emotional harm caused by the hospital when it falsely notified the plaintiff that her mother had died and that she should immediately proceed to give consent for an autopsy and make...