## Facts

- Dan Boyles, Jr. arranged a sexual encounter with Susan Leigh Kerr at a friend’s home; they had known each other and had prior sexual contact.
- Before Kerr arrived, Boyles and friends concealed a video camera in a bedroom and left it recording.
- Boyles covertly videotaped Kerr engaging in sexual intercourse with him.
- Boyles took the videotape and, on three occasions, showed it to approximately ten friends at private residences.
- Gossip about the videotape spread among friends and later at the parties’ respective universities.
- Kerr learned of the videotape months later, confronted Boyles, and received the tape; no copies had been made.
- Kerr claimed humiliation and severe emotional distress arising from the videotaping, exhibition of the tape, and resulting gossip.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas recognizes a general, stand-alone cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress allowing recovery of mental anguish without breach of another recognized legal duty.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas held Texas does not recognize an independent tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress.
- Because Kerr tried the case solely on that theory, the court reversed the judgment in her favor.
- The court remanded for a new trial in the interest of justice to allow pursuit of other potentially viable theories tied to recognized legal duties.

## Legal Principles

- Texas recognizes no general duty not to negligently inflict emotional distress.
- Mental anguish damages are recoverable only when connected to the breach of an independently recognized legal duty and cause of action.
- Prior statements suggesting a general negligent infliction duty were disapproved as misconstructions; the governing rule requires an underlying duty rather than a free-standing emotional-distress tort.
- Limiting recovery to duty-based claims serves to restrict open-ended liability for purely emotional harms and to maintain clearer doctrinal boundaries.

## Conclusion

The court rejected negligent infliction of emotional distress as a stand-alone tort in Texas, holding that mental anguish damages must be anchored to the breach of another recognized legal duty; it reversed the existing NIED-based judgment but remanded for a new trial so the plaintiff could attempt recovery on other valid theories.


Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593 (Tex. 1993)