## Facts

- Husband and wife married in 1975 and separated in 1985; husband filed for dissolution.
- Wife counterclaimed in the dissolution action for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) based on husband’s conduct during the marriage.
- The district court found wife suffered acute depression and one psychotic episode, with conflicting expert testimony about preexisting mental-health conditions and the timing of her depression.
- The district court found husband engaged in a pattern of misconduct, including assault and battery, public humiliation and screaming, locking wife out overnight in winter while she wore only a robe, repeated demeaning remarks about her sexuality, and repeatedly telling her she was “crazy.”
- The district court concluded the conduct caused wife’s emotional disability, entered judgment for IIED damages, and awarded attorney’s fees.
- Husband appealed the IIED judgment and the attorney’s-fee award.

## Issues

1. Whether a spouse may assert an IIED claim against the other spouse under New Mexico law.
2. Whether the conduct found by the trial court was sufficiently “extreme and outrageous,” in context, to support IIED as a matter of law.
3. Whether the attorney’s-fee award in the dissolution proceeding could stand given the disposition of the tort claim.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals held interspousal IIED claims are not categorically barred in New Mexico.
- The court reversed the IIED damages judgment, concluding the conduct—though wrongful and sometimes reprehensible—did not satisfy the “extreme and outrageous” requirement when evaluated in the marital setting.
- The court remanded for further proceedings regarding attorney’s fees in light of the reversal of the tort recovery.

## Legal Principles

- IIED requires intentional or reckless conduct that is so extreme in degree and so outrageous in character as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.
- Abrogation of interspousal immunity for intentional torts and recognition of IIED doctrine support allowing IIED claims between spouses in appropriate cases.
- In the marital context, courts apply heightened caution to IIED claims to avoid converting ordinary marital conflict into tort litigation and to account for privacy concerns and the policies associated with no-fault dissolution.
- Even intentional misconduct, including conduct actionable under other tort theories (e.g., assault and battery), does not automatically satisfy IIED’s separate requirement of extreme and outrageous conduct; context remains central to the analysis.
- Fee determinations in domestic-relations matters may require reconsideration when the substantive outcome materially changes on appeal.

## Conclusion

New Mexico permits spouses to bring IIED claims against each other in principle, but the Court of Appeals reversed an IIED award arising from marital misconduct because the conduct did not meet the exceptionally high “extreme and outrageous” standard applied in the marital setting, and it remanded the attorney’s-fee issue for reconsideration.


Hakkila v. Hakkila, 112 N.M. 172, 812 P.2d 1320 (N.M. Ct. App. 1991)