188 W. Va. 481 - Heldreth v. Marrs’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 56 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2017 · most notably Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall (1994), Clohessy v. Bachelor (1996)
2 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Dillon v. Legg · 27 Cal. 3d 916 - Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · 48 Cal. 3d 644 - Thing v. La Chusa · Sinn v. Burd · Paugh v. Hanks
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A plaintiffs right to recover for the negligent infliction of emotional distress, after witnessing a person closely related to the plaintiff suffer critical injury or death as a result of defendant’s negligent conduct, is premised upon the traditional negligence test of foreseeability. A plaintiff is required to prove under this test that his or her serious emotional distress was reasonably foreseeable, that the defendant’s negligent conduct caused the victim to suffer critical injury or death, and that the plaintiff suffered serious emotional distress as a direct result of witnessing the victim’s critical injury or death. In determining whether the serious emotional injury suffered by a plaintiff in a negligent infliction of emotional distress action was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant, the following factors must be evaluated: (1) whether the plaintiff was closely related to the injury victim; (2) whether the plaintiff was located at the scene of the accident and is aware that it is causing injury to the victim; (3) whether the victim is critically injured or killed; and (4) whether the plaintiff suffers serious emotional distress.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“A defendant may be held liable for negligently causing a plaintiff to experience serious emotional distress, after the plaintiff witnesses a person closely related to the plaintiff suffer critical injury or death as a result of the defendant’s negligent conduct, even though such distress did not result in physical injury, if the serious emotional distress was reasonably foreseeable.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“"There is disagreement among courts, however, as to whether some physical injury must result from the emotional distress. See, e.g., Leong v. Takasaki, 55 Haw. 398 , [404,] 520 P.2d 758, 762 (1974) (physical injury requirement is ‘artificial' and should be used only to show degree of emotional distress); Barnhill v. Davis, 300 N.W.2d [104] 107-08 [(Iowa 1981)] (physical manifestations of distress required); Lejeune v. Rayne Branch Hospital, 556 So.2d 559, 570 (La.1990) (recovery should be allowed only where the emotional injury is both severe and debilitating); Culbert v. Sampson's Supermarkets Inc., 444 A.2d [433,] 438 [(Me.1982)] (proof of physical manifestations of the mental injury is no longer required); Corso v. Merrill, [ 119 N.H. 647, 653 ,] 406 A.2d [300,] 304 [(1979)] (harm for which plaintiff seeks to recover must be susceptible to some form of objective medical determination and proved through qualified medical witnesses); Folz v. State, 110 N.M. 457 , [470,] 797 P.2d 246, 259 (1990) (physical manifestation should not be the sine qua non by which to establish damages resulting from emotional trauma); Paugh v. Hanks, 6 Ohio St.3d 72 , [78,] 451 N.E.2d 759, 765 (1983) (examples of serious emotional distress should include traumatically induced neurosis, psychosis, chronic depression, or phobia); Reilly v. United States, 547 A.2d 894 (R.I.1988) (plaintiff must suffer physical symptomatology to recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress).” 188 W.Va. at 489”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.