## Facts

- Mary A. Clohessy and her sons, seven-year-old Brendan and Liam, attempted to cross Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven within a marked crosswalk.
- A vehicle driven by Kenneth L. Bachelor, alleged to be traveling at excessive speed, passed through the area and its side-view mirror struck Brendan’s head, throwing him onto the roadway.
- Mary and Liam contemporaneously witnessed the impact, immediately went to Brendan, and held him while he suffered fatal injuries.
- Brendan died from the head injuries.
- Mary (as mother) and Liam (as brother) sought damages for emotional distress from witnessing the injury and its immediate aftermath.

## Issues

1. Whether Connecticut recognizes a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress by a bystander who witnesses a negligent injury causing death or serious injury to a close relative.
2. If recognized, what limiting conditions must be met to state a legally sufficient bystander emotional distress claim.
3. Whether recognition of the cause of action should apply only prospectively or also to the parties in the case.

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the judgment striking the bystander negligent infliction of emotional distress count and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court recognized a bystander negligent infliction of emotional distress claim based on reasonable foreseeability, overruling contrary language in prior precedent to the extent inconsistent.
- The court held the plaintiffs’ allegations satisfied the required limitations for bystander recovery.
- The court rejected purely prospective application and applied the rule to the parties before it.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may owe a duty of reasonable care regarding foreseeable serious emotional harm to a bystander who is closely related to a negligently injured victim and contemporaneously perceives the injury-producing event.
- Bystander negligent infliction of emotional distress is limited to claims meeting four conditions:
  - The bystander is closely related to the victim (e.g., parent or sibling).
  - The emotional injury is caused by contemporaneous sensory perception of the event or by arriving soon thereafter before the victim’s condition or location has substantially changed.
  - The victim dies or suffers serious physical injury.
  - The bystander’s emotional injury is serious, beyond what a disinterested witness would anticipate, and not the result of an abnormal response.
- Policy concerns about indeterminate and speculative liability are addressed through relationship, proximity/temporal, and severity limitations rather than categorical denial of duty.
- In civil tort law, newly recognized causes of action generally apply to the parties in the case recognizing the rule absent a sufficient basis for purely prospective limitation.

## Conclusion

The court recognized bystander negligent infliction of emotional distress in Connecticut under a foreseeability-based, four-factor limitation test, held the mother’s and brother’s allegations stated a valid claim, reversed the strike, and applied the rule to the litigants before it.


Clohessy v. Bachelor, 237 Conn. 31, 675 A.2d 852 (Conn. 1996)