## Facts

- Eleanor Ferrara sought X-ray therapy from defendant physicians for bursitis in her right shoulder.
- After several treatments, she experienced nausea, reported it to a defendant, received pills, and continued treatment through a seventh session.
- Following the seventh treatment, her shoulder became itchy and red, blistered, peeled, and remained scabbed for months; one area persisted for years.
- She was diagnosed with chronic radiodermatitis caused by the X-ray therapy, leaving a permanent disfiguring patch with vascular and pigmentary changes and atrophy.
- About two years later, a dermatologist examined her, treated the condition, and advised periodic examinations because the burn area might become cancerous.
- Ferrara claimed severe, continuing anxiety and fear of developing cancer at the burn site.
- At trial, plaintiffs pursued malpractice theories that the radiation dosage was excessive in total, overly concentrated in a single field, and excessive for Ferrara given warning signs (including nausea).
- The jury awarded damages including mental suffering; the trial court admitted the dermatologist’s warning for the limited purpose of showing a reasonable basis for Ferrara’s fear.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff who suffers a negligently inflicted physical injury may recover damages for serious mental suffering based on fear of future cancer when that fear is a natural and reasonable consequence of the injury.
2. Whether a treating physician’s statement that an injury “might become cancerous” is admissible, not to prove future cancer, but to show the reasonableness and cause of the plaintiff’s anxiety.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment for plaintiffs.
- The court held that Ferrara could recover for mental suffering arising from a reasonable fear of future cancer that naturally flowed from the negligently caused physical injury.
- The court upheld admission of the dermatologist’s warning as evidence of the information Ferrara received and its effect on her, supporting the reasonableness and causation of her anxiety rather than proving that cancer would occur.

## Legal Principles

- When negligence causes physical injury, recoverable damages may include consequent mental suffering if it is genuine, substantial, and a natural and reasonable result of the injury.
- Fear of future disease may be compensable when grounded in a medically supported risk associated with the defendant-caused injury, rather than a speculative or idiosyncratic worry.
- An out-of-court medical statement about possible future consequences may be admitted for the non-hearsay purpose of showing its effect on the plaintiff and the basis for claimed mental distress, not for the truth that the future condition will occur.

## Conclusion

The court permitted recovery for serious anxiety over possible future cancer where the fear was reasonably tied to a disfiguring radiation burn caused by malpractice, and it allowed a physician’s warning about possible malignancy to be used to show the basis and causation of that mental suffering.


Ferrara v. Galluchio, 5 N.Y.2d 16, 176 N.Y.S.2d 996, 152 N.E.2d 249 (N.Y. 1958)