Emotional distress damages are not recoverable by non-family member

A driver could not be awarded emotional distress damages for witnessing the death of a passenger, absent an intimate family relationship, the New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled.

The plaintiff brought suit against a motorist whose negligence allegedly caused the death of the plaintiff's fiancee, which was a passenger on his motorcycle at the time of the accident. He sought emotional distress damages, arguing that because he was a direct victim of the accident he should be able to recover for all the injuries he suffered.

But the court, citing New Mexico precedent emphasizing that negligent infliction of emotional distress is a tort against the family, declined the plaintiff's "invitation to substitute an unrelated policy-based requirement - that the plaintiff be involved in the accident that injured the victim - for the familial relationship requirement."

The court said that the rule proposed by the plaintiff, which has been adopted in jurisdictions such as California and Indiana, would "lead to unpredictable results in a particularly undesirable way - it would cause a significant expansion of liability, and yet, ... it would do little if anything to help ensure fair and consistent recovery for deserving victims."

The court reasoned that the "direct victim" theory was unpredictable because "it is dependent on whether the plaintiff happens to suffer a fortuitous and unrelated injury. ... [W]e do not think the presence of physical injury does anything to ensure that emotional distress claims are reliable, that liability is proportional to culpability, or that liability is predictable."

Montoya v. Pearson (Lawyers USA No. 9934120) New Mexico Court of Appeals No. 25,455. May 30, 2006.