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CLOHESSY v. BACHELOR5/21/1996
ld that "where it is proven that negligence proximately caused
fright or shock [with respect to the person's own safety] in one who is within the range of ordinary physical danger from that negligence, and this in turn produced injuries such as would be elements of damage had a bodily injury been suffered, the injured party is entitled to recover."
In Strazza, however, the court did not permit the plaintiff to recover for the fright she had suffered from mistakenly believing that her child had been on the porch and had been injured. Relying upon the decisions of the courts> of other states prior to 1959, which universally denied recovery for bystander emotional distress, the court held that the plaintiff "cannot recover for injuries occasioned by fear of threatened harm or injury to the person or property of another. . . . Such injuries are too remote in the chain of causation to permit recovery. . . . 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. [Annot.] 18 A.L.R.2d 220, 224, 234; 38 Am. Jur. 660, § 18; 67 C.J.S. 761, § 55." (Citations omitted.) Strazza v. McKittrick, supra, 146 Conn. 719.
In Amodio, the plaintiff mother sought damages for emotional distress sustained as a result of the defendant physician's alleged medical malpractice that she claimed caused the death of her daughter. The plaintiff urged this court to recognize a cause of action for bystander emotional distress as set forth in Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal.2d 728, 441 P.2d 912, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72 (1968). The California Supreme Court in Dillon, relying on established principles of negligence, focused on foreseeability, and held that " ince 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 intertwined with foreseeability
such duty or obligation must necessarily be adjudicated only upon a case-by-case basis." Id., 740. The Dillon court then set forth three factors to consider in determining whether the emotional injury to the bystander is reasonably foreseeable: "(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." Id., 740-41.
The Dillon court went on to state that " he evaluation of these factors will indicate the degree of the defendant's foreseeability: obviously defendant is more likely to foresee that a mother who observes an accident affecting her child will suffer harm than to foretell that a stranger witness will do so. Similarly, the degree of foreseeability of the third person's injury is far greater in the case of his contemporaneous observance of the accident than that in which he subsequently learns of it. The defendant is more likely to foresee that shock to the nearby, witnessing mother will cause physical harm than to anticipate that someone distant from the accident will suffer more than a temporary emotional reaction. All these elements, of course, shade into each other; the fixing of obligation, intimately tied into the facts, depends upon each case." Id., 741.
The court in Amodio recognized that a "growing num
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