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Emotional Distress Damages

The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.

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Tran v. Nguyen (2023) 2023 97 Cal.App.5th 523

Civil Code 1566, 1567, and 1570 establish a right to rescission in cases in which a person’s consent to a transaction was obtained by “menace”:  threats of confinement, of unlawful violence to the person or his or her property, or of injury to a person’s character.  This is effectively the civil version of extortion.  So, Tran could state a claim… Read More

Glassman v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., No. H049825, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 329 (Ct. App. Apr. 28, 2023)

In this case, plaintiff obtained a UIM arbitration award for the entire $1 million umbrella policy limit due to emotional distress plaintiff suffered from seeing the underinsured motorist hit her mother who was crossing the street with her.  Before the arbitration award, plaintiff made a 998 offer for a penny less than the umbrella policy limits, which the insurer refused. … Read More

Berry v. Frazier, No. A164168, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 332 (Ct. App. Apr. 28, 2023)

Plaintiff wanted to give her cat "a good death."  She alleged an actionable fraud claim against the defendant vet for promising to give the cat a painless death, thereby getting plaintiff to agree to an intracardiac injection.  Plaintiff suffered damage from her reliance on that representation when her cat suffered a long and painful death instead.  Plaintiff also stated a… Read More

Downey v. City of Riverside, No. D080377, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 318 (Ct. App. Apr. 26, 2023)

Plaintiff mother sued for negligent infliction of emotional distress.  She was on the telephone with her daughter while the daughter drove a car at an intersection where her vision of on-coming traffic was obscured by defendants' negligent maintenance of vegetation on adjoining property.  That mother heard the crash on the phone was insufficient in itself to allow her to sue. … Read More

Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., No. 20-219, 2022 U.S. LEXIS 2230 (Apr. 28, 2022)

Four federal statutes bar discrimination on the basis of race, gender, disability or other protected characteristics by recipients of federal financial assistance; namely Title VI and IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Affordable Care Act.  None of these acts expressly grant private rights of action to victims of discrimination that violates those Acts' provisions. … Read More