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Belcher v. T. Rowe Price Foundation Inc.3/25/1993
. It, thus, defined "physical injury " to include demonstrable emotional distress. We take this as the present status of the law of Maryland -- in tort actions, damages may be recovered for emotional distress capable of objective determination. In other words, under Vance 's definition of "physical injury", damages resulting from harm psychological in nature may be obtained, independent of physiological harm, provided the cause and effect of psychological harm are established.
The Vance-Bowman standard went far to dispel the fear that the right to damages for emotional distress would open the floodgates to feigned claims. Those opposing the right argued that, upon the ground of expediency, the right should be denied, because of the damages of opening the door to fictitious litigation and the impossibility of estimating damages. Green answered this argument:
The argument from mere expediency cannot commend itself to a Court of justice, resulting in the denial of a logical legal right and remedy in all cases, because in some a fictitious injury may be urged as a real one. The apparent strength of the theory of expediency lies in the fact that nervous disturbances and injuries are sometimes more imaginary than real, and are sometimes feigned, but this reasoning loses sight of the equally obvious fact that a nervous injury arising from actual physical impact is as likely to be imagined as one resulting from fright without physical impact, and that the former is as capable of simulation as the latter.
111 Md. at 81, 73 A. 688. (emphasis in original). W. Page Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts (5th ed. 1984), recognized the problem as very real, but as one that must be met:
Mental disturbance is easily simulated, and courts which are plagued with fraudulent personal injury claims may
be unwilling to open the door to an even more dubious field. But the difficulties may not be insuperable.
Id. § 54, p. 361. Keeton pointed out:
Not only fright and shock, but other kinds of mental injury are marked by definite physical symptoms, which are capable of medical or other objective proof.
Id. (footnote omitted). He suggested:
It is entirely possible to allow recovery only upon satisfactory evidence and deny it when there is nothing to corroborate the claim, or to look for some guarantee of genuineness in the circumstances of the case. The problem from this perspective is one of adequate proof, and it is not necessary to deny a remedy in all cases because some claims may be false.
Id. (footnote omitted). Keeton also looked to the effect on the defendant:
And where the concern is to avoid imposing excessive punishment upon a negligent defendant, it must be asked whether fairness will permit leaving the burden of loss instead upon the innocent victim.
Id. Vance adequately answered the troubling basic policy issues surrounding the definition of the limits of liability for negligently inflicted emotional harm by requiring that such harm be capable of objective determination. Such an objective determination provides reasonable assurance that the claim is not spurious. Where this assurance can be found, so that the mental distress appears to be real and serious, there is no good reason to deny recovery. Where such assurance is not found, recovery should be denied. See Keeton, § 54, p. 362.
We have traced the development of the law of Maryland as interpreted in our judicial opinions concerned with liability for negligently inflicted mental harm, from a standard limiting such liability to purely physical trauma to a standard permitting rec
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