Legal Definitions - emotional distress

Emotional distress refers to significant mental or emotional suffering experienced by an individual as a direct result of another person's actions or negligence. It encompasses a range of unpleasant mental reactions, such as profound anguish, grief, fright, humiliation, or fury, that go beyond ordinary emotional upset.

In legal contexts, emotional distress is often a key component of a claim for damages, particularly in tort law. It can manifest through various symptoms, including anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, inability to perform daily tasks, or even physical ailments.

There are two primary legal categories related to the infliction of emotional distress:

• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED): This occurs when someone deliberately or recklessly engages in extreme and outrageous conduct with the specific intent to cause severe emotional suffering to another person, and their actions succeed in doing so. The conduct must be so extreme as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.

  • Example 1: A disgruntled former employee repeatedly sends anonymous, threatening letters to their previous manager, detailing fabricated personal information and implying harm to the manager's family. The manager, despite knowing the threats are likely empty, experiences severe panic attacks, insomnia, and requires therapy due to the constant fear and psychological torment. This illustrates IIED because the former employee's actions were intentional, outrageous, and directly caused severe emotional distress to the manager.

• Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: This arises when a person's careless or reckless actions, though not intended to cause harm, lead to severe emotional suffering in another individual. This often applies to situations where someone witnesses a traumatic event caused by another's negligence, even if they were not physically injured themselves.

  • Example 2: A construction company negligently fails to secure a large piece of equipment at a building site. The equipment falls onto a busy sidewalk, narrowly missing a pedestrian but tragically crushing their beloved pet dog right in front of them. The pedestrian, though physically unharmed, develops severe depression, flashbacks, and an intense fear of public spaces due to witnessing the traumatic event. This demonstrates negligent infliction of emotional distress because the company's negligence caused the traumatic event, leading to profound emotional suffering for the pedestrian, even without direct physical injury to them.

  • Example 3: A hospital staff member negligently misplaces a patient's medical records, leading to the patient being incorrectly informed that they have a terminal illness. The patient endures weeks of intense grief, anxiety, and makes significant life-altering decisions based on this false information before the error is discovered. This illustrates negligent infliction of emotional distress because the hospital's carelessness in handling records directly caused the patient immense and prolonged emotional suffering due to the devastating, albeit false, diagnosis.

In both intentional and negligent scenarios, a person who has suffered severe emotional distress may be able to seek compensation for their suffering, depending on the specific circumstances and the laws of the jurisdiction.