''Dillon v. Legg'', 68 Cal. 2d 728 (1968), was a landmark

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

decided by the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the judiciary of California, courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly ...

that established the

tort A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with cri ...

negligent infliction of emotional distress The tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) is a controversial cause of action, which is available in nearly all U.S. states but is severely constrained and limited in the majority of them. The underlying concept is that one ...

. To date, it is the most persuasive decision of the most persuasive state supreme court in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century: ''Dillon'' has been favorably cited and followed by at least twenty reported out-of-state appellate decisions, more than any other California appellate decision in the period from 1940 to 2005. It was also favorably cited by the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

in an important case on nervous shock, ''

McLoughlin v O'Brian ''McLoughlin v O'Brian''

983 Year 983 ( CMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Diet of Verona: Emperor Otto II (the Red) declares war against the Byzantine Empire and the Emirate of Sicily ...

1 AC 410 is an English tort law case, decided by the Judicial functions of the House of Lords, House of Lords, dealing with the possibility of recovering for Nervous shock, psychiatric harm suffered as a result o ...

Background

A mother, Margery M. Dillon, and her daughter Cheryl witnessed the death of her other child in a car accident caused by a

negligent Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a negl ...

driver, David Luther Legg. Two-year-old Erin Dillon was fatally struck by Legg's vehicle while crossing Bluegrass Road near its intersection with Clover Lane (near the Dillons' residence in the

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

of Arden-Arcade in

Sacramento County Sacramento County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,585,055. Its county seat is Sacramento, which has been the state capital of California since 1854. Sacrament ...

). The mother and daughter sued for emotional distress as a result of witnessing the accident. The trial court dismissed the claim under the prevailing zone of danger rule: the plaintiff needed to be in physical danger of the accident itself to recover for emotional distress.

Decision

Majority opinion

The court relied on foreseeability to establish whether or not a negligent defendant owed a

duty of care In Tort, tort law, a duty of care is a legal Law of obligations, obligation that is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of care, standard of Reasonable person, reasonable care to avoid careless acts that could foreseeab ...

to a bystander. The court urged a case-by-case analysis of several factors to determine if foreseeability would create a duty to a bystander: *Whether the plaintiff was near the scene of the accident, *Whether the plaintiff suffered an emotional shock from contemporaneously observing the accident, and *Whether the plaintiff is closely related to the victim Using these criteria, the court determined that it was foreseeable that the negligent operation of an automobile could cause emotional distress to a mother witnessing the injury of her child in an accident.

Traynor's dissent

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Traynor asserted that the case should have been decided according to the zone of danger rule enunciated in the case ''Amaya v. Home Ice, Fuel & Supply Co.''

Burke's dissent

In dissent, Justice Burke asserted that the majority had adopted arguments that were previously rejected in ''Amaya''. Burke criticized the guidelines offered by the majority as insufficient protection against possibly limitless liability. Burke viewed the limitations on liability inherent in the zone of danger rule as logical and necessary, and thought that such a pronounced change in liability rules should be adopted by the legislature and not the courts.''Dillon'', 68 Cal.2d at 749-52

References

External links

Edited text and audio of opinion at Audio Case Files
{{United States tort case law United States negligence case law 1968 in United States case law Supreme Court of California case law 1968 in California History of Sacramento, California Traffic collisions