## Facts

- Roger Hood worked at a liquor store in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
- On August 7, 1976, two masked men robbed the store and fatally shot another employee; Hood witnessed the robbery and killing.
- Police released a report to the press describing the crime and identifying Hood by name and address; Hood was not listed in the local telephone directory.
- Naeter Brothers Publishing Co. ran a front-page news story, written by reporter Don R. Smith, describing the robbery and murder and identifying Hood as a witness and printing his address while the suspects remained at large.
- Hood alleged the publication caused severe fear and emotional distress, led him to change residences repeatedly, and required psychiatric treatment.
- Hood sued the newspaper and reporter for intentional infliction of emotional distress (tort of outrage).
- The trial court entered summary judgment for defendants on the ground that the publication was not outrageous as a matter of law.

## Issues

1. Whether publishing a homicide witness’s name and address, obtained from a police release and printed while suspects are at large, can constitute extreme and outrageous conduct sufficient for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
2. Whether the “outrageousness” element presents a threshold question of law permitting summary judgment on undisputed facts.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the newspaper and reporter.
- The court held the publication, based on police-released information in a news report of a serious crime, was not extreme and outrageous conduct as a matter of law.
- Because no triable issue existed on the outrageousness element, Hood could not proceed on an intentional infliction of emotional distress theory.

## Legal Principles

- Liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress requires extreme and outrageous conduct that intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress.
- “Extreme and outrageous” conduct is limited to behavior so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and be utterly intolerable in a civilized community.
- Severe emotional distress, even if genuine and serious, does not establish liability absent conduct meeting the extreme-and-outrageous threshold.
- Whether alleged conduct is sufficiently outrageous is a threshold question for the court; if it is not outrageous as a matter of law, summary judgment is proper.

## Conclusion

The court rejected an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim based on a newspaper’s publication of a witness’s name and address drawn from a police report, holding that such reporting, even with suspects at large and resulting fear, does not meet Missouri’s stringent “extreme and outrageous” requirement.


Hood v. Naeter Bros. Publ’g Co., 562 S.W.2d 770 (Mo. Ct. App. 1978)