Summary
In Pate, the alleged negligent, or reckless, act which ultimately led to the death of plaintiff's sister, occurred two days prior to her death.
Summary of this case from Moore v. JohnsonOpinion
Docket No. 83235.
Decided October 16, 1986. Leave to appeal denied, 428 Mich. 870.
Chambers, Steiner, Mazur, Ornstein Amlin, P.C. (by Angela J. Nicita), for plaintiffs.
Kitch, Saurbier, Drutchas, Wagner Kenney, P.C. (by Salwa G. Spong), for defendants.
Plaintiffs Betty Jo Pate, personal representative of the estate of Beverly Kay Pate, and Miranda Gale Pate, sister of the decedent, appeal as of right from an order granting the defendants' motion for partial summary judgment with respect to the claim of Miranda Gale Pate (hereinafter plaintiff) in her individual capacity. The substance of the dismissed claim and the sole issue on appeal is whether plaintiff stated a cause of action for tortious infliction of emotional distress pursuant to GCR 1963, 117.2(1) in her allegation that she suffered emotional distress which resulted in physical injury when her fourteen-year-old sister, Beverly Kay Pate, died in her arms allegedly as a result of the defendants' malpractice.
The original complaint in this medical malpractice action was filed by the decedent's mother, Betty Jo Pate, and alleged that the decedent died as a result of cardiopulmonary arrest from undiagnosed pneumonia in the emergency room at defendant hospital. A first amended complaint alleged that the decedent entered the hospital on February 11, 1983, and was discharged the following day with a diagnosis of gastroenteritis. A second amended complaint, which added defendant emergency room and added a fourth count incorporating the independent cause of action for plaintiff, alleged that plaintiff brought the decedent to the emergency room on February 14, 1983, and that the decedent suffered cardiopulmonary arrest in plaintiff's arms while awaiting treatment. It further alleged that plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress which resulted in physical injuries such as depression, loss of sleep, listlessness, and withdrawal from normal forms of socialization as a result of the defendant's negligence.
Defendants' motion for summary judgment as to plaintiff's claim was originally granted by order dated December 27, 1984, holding that plaintiff had failed to state a legally cognizable cause of action under Michigan law. That order was set aside upon entry of the January 29, 1985, final order which provides the subject matter of this appeal.
Review of a grant or denial of summary judgment based upon GCR 1963, 117.2(1), now MCR 2.116[C][8], is predicated upon the pleadings alone. The motion tests the legal basis of the complaint, not whether it can be factually supported. Where the claim is so clearly unenforceable as a matter of law that no factual development can possibly justify a right to recovery, this Court will not disturb the lower court's dismissal. Harris v Citizens Ins Co, 141 Mich. App. 110, 113; 366 N.W.2d 11 (1983); Rodis v Herman Keifer Hospital, 142 Mich. App. 425, 427-428; 370 N.W.2d 18 (1985). Plaintiff urges that the trial court erred in finding that she had pled no viable cause of action for bystander recovery in this case. We disagree.
In Gustafson v Faris, 67 Mich. App. 363; 241 N.W.2d 208 (1976), this Court, quoting from Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 54, pp 334-335, adopted the following limitations for bystander recovery:
" Some limitations might, however, be suggested. It is clear that the injury threatened or inflicted upon the third person must be a serious one, of a nature to cause severe mental disturbance to the plaintiff, and that the shock must result in actual physical harm. The action might, at least initially, well be confined to members of the immediate family of the one endangered, or perhaps to husband, wife, parent, or child, to the exclusion of mere bystanders, and remote relatives. As an additional safeguard, it might be required that the plaintiff be present at the time of the accident or peril, or at least that the shock be fairly contemporaneous with it, rather than follow when the plaintiff is informed of the whole matter at a later date." (Footnotes omitted. Emphasis supplied.) [ 67 Mich. App. at 368-369.]
We find it unnecessary to decide the instant case on the basis of plaintiff's relationship to the decedent. The more sound basis for a decision in this case is the "fairly contemporaneous" requirement that was set forth in Gustafson. Gustafson clearly contemplates a sudden, brief, and inherently shocking accidental event which causes the injury or death, which contemporaneously, and by its very nature, results in emotional and physical injury to the plaintiff. See also Toms v McConnell, 45 Mich. App. 647; 207 N.W.2d 140 (1973), and Henley v Dep't of State Highways Transportation, 128 Mich. App. 214; 340 N.W.2d 72 (1983), lv den 418 Mich. 965 (1984).
In this case, plaintiff has alleged that her sister's death was caused by defendants' negligent omissions two days earlier when the defendants failed to admit decedent for care and observation relative to a respiratory ailment, failed to obtain an adequate history, failed to diagnose that decedent was suffering from a pneumococcal pneumonitis, and failed to obtain an expert consultation relative to decedent's respiratory condition. What is missing from these allegations is the contemporaneous infliction of a tortious injury that could be described as an inherently shocking event. All that the plaintiff has alleged are negligent omissions in the form of nonobservable events that occurred two days prior to the decedent's death. As defendants point out, while presence at the side of a loved one at the time of her death is certainly a grievous event, without more it is simply not the sort of inherently shocking and sudden event to which the doctrine of bystander recover for emotional distress and resulting physical injury was intended to apply.
Plaintiff's citation to Lafferty v Manhasset Medical Center Hospital, 103 Misc.2d 98; 425 N.Y.S.2d 244 (1980), in support of her position is not well taken since that decision was reversed by a higher court. See Lafferty v Manhasset Medical Center Hospital, 79 A.D. 2d 996; 435 N.Y.S.2d 307 (1981), aff'd 54 N.Y.2d 277; 429 N.E.2d 789; 445 N.Y.S.2d 111 (1981). Ochoa v Superior Court, 39 Cal.3d 159; 703 P.2d 1; 216 Cal.Rptr. 661 (1985), and Wargelin v Sisters of Mercy Health Corp, 149 Mich. App. 75; 385 N.W.2d 732 (1986), are distinguishable from the instant case in that in those cases the plaintiffs were aware of the fact that the decedent needed immediate medical attention and observed the defendants' continued refusal to provide such care. Nor does Mobaldi v Regents of Univ of California, 55 Cal.App.3d 573; 127 Cal.Rptr. 720 (1976), assist much in plaintiff's argument. Mobaldi involved infliction of severe injuries to a child in his foster mother's arms almost immediately after he was negligently injected with a glucose solution. The foster mother saw the injection of the solution and the boy's spasms, convulsion, and coma.
While the Mobaldi court stated that it was the observation of the consequences of the negligent act and not the observation of the tortious act itself which caused the trauma to plaintiff to be compensable, the fact remains that in this case it was not tortious acts, but instead allegedly tortious omissions which resulted in plaintiff's sister's death. These alleged omissions were neither inherently shocking and sudden nor were they "fairly contemporaneous" with the emotional trauma suffered by the plaintiff. The elements of the tort pleaded in this case clearly require an intentional or reckless act or an inherently shocking or sudden act or event in order to state a viable cause of action. See Ledsinger v Burmeister, 114 Mich. App. 12; 318 N.W.2d 558 (1982); Warren v June's Mobile Home Village Sales, Inc, 66 Mich. App. 386; 239 N.W.2d 380 (1976). Plaintiff's claim finds no support in the law. Accordingly, we find no error in the lower court's grant of partial summary judgment with respect to plaintiff's individual claim for tortious infliction of emotional distress.
Affirmed.