MONTPELIER, Vt. (Legal Newsline) - Walking through brain matter at the scene of a gruesome accident isn't enough to sue over, the Vermont Supreme Court has ruled.
Jennifer Zeno-Ethridge and husband Dennis wanted the court to expand a certain requirement for claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress after she witnessed a worker on the side of a road get sucked under a truck, which crushed the man's skull.
Walking through his blood and brain matter and the resulting post-traumatic stress disorder didn't rise to the requirement of "physical impact from external force" for her NIED claim, the court found.
"To accept PTSD as a physical injury simply because it may result in physical changes to one's body would 'break down entirely' the logical divide 'between emotional and physical harms,'" Justice Harold Eaton ruled.
"Breaking down this divide, in turn, would make it impossible to define what harms fal under NIED as opposed to negligence rendering these torts indistinguishable and pointlessly duplicative."
Zeno-Ethridge was driving on Route 7 in Middlebury in March 2016 while Eustis Cable workers were installing lines for Comcast. A utility truck on the side of the road was heading in reverse toward a Green Mountain Flagg employee.
The truck backed over the man and sucked him under it. She acted by driving her car in the truck's way so it would stop reversing, hoping to save the man.
Unfortunately, his skull had been crushed and other parts of his body mangled. She got out of her car to tell the driver of the truck not to get out because of the horrible nature of the accident.
As she did, blood and brain matter got on her pants. Five months later, she was diagnosed with PTSD. A trial court in Addison granted summary judgment for the defendants Comcast, Eustis and Green Mountain Flagging.
The Supreme Court affirmed, holding Zeno-Ethridge initiated the contact with the worker's blood and brain matter. Chief Justice Paul Reiber dissented.
"(B)oth the contact and her alleged injuries were the proximate and foreseeable consequences of defendant's negligence," he wrote.
"Defendant here ran over the victim, causing the victim’s blood and brain matter to be expelled onto the pavement, and also causing plaintiff to rush to the victim’s aid. In seeking to rescue the victim, plaintiff made direct physical contact with the victim’s blood and brain matter.
"Thus, the 'external force' here was defendant’s operation of the truck, which caused plaintiff to make physical contact with the blood and brain matter."