Emotional distress is a psychological injury and victims can sue another party for those damages in California civil courts to pursue compensation. Emotional trauma is not always caused by physical injuries and the presence of a physical injury is not needed to pursue emotional distress in a claim. Still, it is harder to prove as certain criteria must be met.
But how can you prove emotional distress in court in California? The basis of emotional distress damages and seeking them through civil lawsuits depends on the emotional distress a party suffered due to the intentional or negligent actions of another, be they physical or psychological.
Emotional distress, like other types of non-economic damages, is a bit more difficult to prove in court than economic damages such as medical bills or property damage. However, with an experienced personal injury lawyer by your side, you can prove the negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress and other emotional harm you have suffered due to the actions of the other party.
A personal injury attorney can guide you and prove emotional distress in and outside of court. At Brown & Gessell, our dedicated personal injury attorneys work closely with third-party experts, including mental health professionals to prove pain and suffering, emotional distress, and other non-economic damages in personal injury cases. Contact our office today for a free consultation to learn more and seek fair compensation for the harm you have suffered. Here is what you should know about emotional distress and proving it in Californian courts.
Understanding Emotional Distress Claims
To prove emotional distress in a personal injury lawsuit, a victim must first understand that they can experience emotional distress from an intentional act or a negligent one.
Someone can suffer emotional distress as a direct victim of a defendant’s conduct or they can be a bystander and still experience emotional distress. If the defendant’s conduct was intentional or not, the type of evidence needed to prove emotional distress damages will depend on whether the defendant exhibited negligent, egregious, or intentional conduct.
In cases of egregious actions, a victim can also recover compensation for punitive damages. Punitive damages are a form of punishment against the defendant to deter similar conduct in the future.
California law recognizes emotional distress as a state of mental suffering and generally allows a plaintiff to sue for emotional distress if they also experienced physical harm. This is because physical injuries are easier to correlate to emotional distress and other forms of non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, mental anguish, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others.
However, although physical harm strengthens emotional distress lawsuits, it is not always a mandatory element to pursue a claim. For example, in a car accident, some passengers might develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) without experiencing injuries from just witnessing the traumatic events, and seeing their friends or family get hurt. In situations where victims or bystanders were not injured but still want to sue for emotional distress, California’s “zone of danger” rule will play a crucial role in the legal process.
The Zone of Danger Rule
Under California law, the zone of danger rule allows a party to seek non-economic damages if they suffer severe emotional distress, regardless of whether they suffer physical injuries or not. The rule is simple; if a victim or bystander is in the zone of danger and fears for their physical safety or is aware that their loved one is in peril due to the defendant’s negligent actions or intentional wrongdoing, they can seek compensatory damages for their emotional state and trauma.
Classification of Severe Emotional Distress
Although you can pursue emotional distress without suffering injuries, you must demonstrate that your emotional distress is severe. Severe emotional suffering can come with various physical symptoms, such as:
- Anxiety, panic attacks, and other negative emotions
- Insomnia, nightmares, or flashbacks
- Fatigue, or physical pain such as chronic headaches, which are often associated with trauma
In some instances where the defendant intended to harm the victim without physicaly injuring them, a plaintiff can pursue emotional distress in a harassment or defamation case.
Severe emotional distress, even without the presence of injuries, can lead to various types of mental conditions such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety.
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
When it comes to emotional distress in California, there are two main types of claims recognized under the state’s law: intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
In negligent infliction of emotional distress cases, the defendant’s negligence resulted in the harm of a victim or bystander and caused injuries and serious emotional distress. In such cases, the party who wants to pursue an emotional distress claim must demonstrate that the defendant owed them a duty of care, breached that duty, and the breach resulted in severe emotional harm.
Plaintiffs can also focus on proving that the defendant’s negligence placed them at risk of physical harm even if none occurred. Negligent infliction of emotional distress cases can be car accidents where a driver failed to obey traffic signs and crashed into the plaintiff’s vehicle.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
In intentional infliction of emotional distress cases, the defendant’s outrageous conduct was intentional or reckless. Plaintiffs must prove that the defendant’s actions were egregious, done with reckless disregard, or intended to cause distress.
Plaintiffs must also demonstrate that the event directly resulted in their emotional suffering and other losses. In intentional infliction of emotional distress cases, emotional distress exists not only because of the traumatic event but also because of the knowledge that the defendant intended to cause harm.
The legal complexities surrounding these types of emotional distress cases are greater than the ones where someone else’s negligence resulted in personal injury. This is because the defendant will likely try to defend themself and claim negligence rather than intentional actions, as the penalties and punishments are lower.
A personal injury lawsuit attorney can help victims who have experienced intentional psychological or physical injury and pursue punitive damages in addition to non-economic damages.
Damages Awarded in Emotional Distress Cases, California
In an emotional distress claim, damages are awarded based on the intent of the at-fault party, the risk of harm, whether the person is a direct victim or bystander, and foreseeability. The severity of the injuries and the strength of the evidence that proves serious emotional distress also play a vital role.
In most instances, victims that have a case of intentional infliction of emotional distress can receive compensation for punitive damages and are not limited to what is foreseeable. They can receive compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages, therapy sessions, medical bills, and property damage if they have physical injuries.
In negligent infliction of emotional distress, damages are limited to what is foreseeable. Victims will receive compensation for their emotional distress damages, lost wages, property damage, and other lossses.
A bystander victim who does not suffer injury but experiences emotional distress can be compensated for their psychological and physical symptoms.
Proving Emotional Distress Claims
To recover damages for emotional distress in California, parties need to gather evidence from the investigative process that can back up their claims. Medical records that attest to the victim’s injuries or diagnosis of mental health conditions, such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression, are among the most important pieces of evidence that prove emotional distress in court.
When you suffer emotional distress, firsthand accounts of your experience and testimony from friends and family members will also strengthen your emotional distress case. In a personal injury claim, if the emotional distress caused physical symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, or digestive issues, witnesses can highlight and correlate the symptoms with the condition.
A person’s mental health can be examined in the legal process by going through their journals, diaries, or personal notes, which highlight their anguish and the impact the incident had on their life. If a loved one perished in the accident you were involved in, it will be easier to prove emotional distress.
In personal injury lawsuits, the more witnesses you have for your claim, the higher your chances will be to prove emotional distress. Still, medical/psychological, corroborating documentary and contextual evidence will also play a crucial role.
Because of this, victims must always keep track of their medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, their state of mind, and how the event affected them. Since you seek compensation for all your expenses, keeping track of them is not only a good way to get proper compensation but will also serve as evidence that you received treatment for your emotional distress.
The medical treatment that you receive will be easy to correlate with your emotional distress claim.
Expert testimonies and their role in establishing emotional distress claims
Medical records can be used by mental health professionals to highlight your damages and suffering in your emotional distress case. Expert witness testimony in emotional distress lawsuits can greatly help you seek compensation that accurately represents your damages.
A personal injury lawyer can help you connect with such professionals to provide clinical assessments and opinions on the causation, severity, and long-term effects of emotional distress.
In a California intentional infliction of emotional distress case, psychologists, therapists, and other health care profesionals can also provide incriminating statements to showcase the defendant’s reckless, outrageous, or intentional actions. Certain egregious behaviours can be explained by these profesionals to further highlight intentionality or they can work alongside your lawyer to do so.
Proving Fault
Proving fault is an essential aspect of any personal injury case. To prove fault in a case involving emotional distress in California, a victim should write down the contact information of eyewitneses, take photographs of the accident scene, and seek medical attention for both physical and mental damages.
Victims should contact a dedicated personal injury attorney to help them prepare their case and highlight their economic and non-economic damages. Failure to seek help after a personal injury incident can be used against the plaintiff.
It’s also worth noting that under California law, you only have two years to pursue a claim under the state’s statute of limitations. If you do not pursue a claim within this legal timeframe, you can lose your right to sue.
Challenges and defenses commonly seen in emotional distress cases
Non-economic damages such as emotional distress are often worth more in personal injury cases than economic damages. However, when you pursue a case for emotional distress in California, you must remember that you will be subjected to the state’s pure comparative negligence rule.
The pure comparative negligence rule allows you to pursue damages even if you are partially at fault. However, since each party will be assigned a percentage of fault and their rewards will be reduced accordingly, all parties involved will try to avoid being assigned a high degree of fault.
When you pursue a personal injury claim, you can expect that the other party will try to place most or all of the blame on you. In an intentional infliction of emotional distress case, they will try to demonstrate that their actions were not intentional and attribute it to negligence instead.
Some defenses focus on demonstrating a lack of foreseeability of the victim’s emotional distress as a consequence of the negligent conduct. Other defenses will try to prove that the victim already had preexisting conditions related to their mental health.
To overcome any defenses in a case involving emotional distress in California, a dedicated personal injury attorney will help you present compelling evidence and work alongside third-party experts to demonstrate the severity of your emotional distress so that you can receive fair compensation.
At Brown & Gessell, we have aggressively and successfully represented victims of personal injury for almost 20 years. Our dedicated attorneys can give you a fighting chance of seeking compensation for your damages and losses, especially emotional distress. Contact our law firm today for a free case evaluation to learn more about your legal options.