## Facts

- Angelo J. Bartolone, a 48-year-old union carpenter, lived alone and supported himself despite a preexisting paranoid schizophrenic condition that had not been disabling.
- Bartolone maintained strict physical fitness habits, spending hours daily body-building, which helped him function and avoid medical care due to a longstanding fear of illness and doctors.
- On October 4, 1976, he was involved in a four-car chain-reaction collision in Niagara Falls; defendants were found liable for the accident.
- Bartolone sustained relatively minor physical injuries (whiplash, cervical and lower back strain) treated with medication and physical therapy; he was not hospitalized.
- After the accident, Bartolone suffered an acute psychotic breakdown and deteriorated into a chronic psychotic state, including withdrawal, hostility, delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, and severe neglect of personal hygiene.
- Plaintiff’s experts (three psychiatrists and a neurosurgeon) attributed the breakdown to accident-related pain and impairment that disrupted the fitness-centered coping structure that had kept his latent condition from becoming disabling.
- A jury awarded Bartolone $500,000 for the psychotic breakdown and resulting losses.
- The trial court set aside the verdict and ordered a new trial unless Bartolone accepted a remittitur to $30,000; he refused and appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants’ negligence, causing minor physical injuries, could be found a proximate cause of a severe and permanent psychotic breakdown by aggravating a preexisting schizophrenic condition.
2. Whether the jury’s $500,000 damages award was so excessive that the trial court properly set it aside and conditioned a new trial on reduction to $30,000.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division reversed the trial court’s order and reinstated the jury’s $500,000 verdict.
- The court upheld the jury’s finding that the accident aggravated plaintiff’s preexisting paranoid schizophrenia and was a proximate cause of his permanent psychosis.
- The court held the verdict was not excessive given the severity, permanence, and total disabling effect of plaintiff’s post-accident mental condition.

## Legal Principles

- A tortfeasor takes the plaintiff as found and is responsible for the full consequences of negligent conduct when it aggravates a preexisting physical or mental condition.
- Once some injury is a foreseeable consequence of negligent conduct, liability is not limited because the plaintiff’s unusual susceptibility produces a far greater extent of harm than would occur in an ordinary person.
- Proximate cause may be established by competent expert proof that accident-related physical injury and resulting functional limitations precipitated or aggravated a latent mental illness into a disabling condition.
- A jury’s damages award should not be disturbed absent a showing that it is excessive under the governing standard; substantial, permanent psychological deterioration and total disability can support a large award.

## Conclusion

The court held defendants liable for the full, catastrophic psychiatric consequences of a negligently caused accident where the evidence supported that minor physical injuries triggered a permanent psychotic breakdown by aggravating a preexisting condition, and it reinstated the jury’s $500,000 verdict after finding the trial court improperly reduced it.


Bartolone v. Jeckovich, 103 A.D.2d 632, 481 N.Y.S.2d 545 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dep’t 1984)