## Facts

- A newborn, Kawana Johnson, was born at Jamaica Hospital on June 8, 1981 and remained in the nursery for additional medical care after her mother was discharged.
- On June 16, 1981, the hospital received two bomb threats, and Kawana disappeared from the nursery, apparently abducted.
- The parents alleged the hospital negligently failed to provide adequate custody and security for the infant.
- The parents sought damages only for their own emotional distress (grief, mental anguish), alleging no physical impact to themselves and no contemporaneous observation of physical injury to the child.
- Police recovered the child and returned her to her parents about four and one-half months later.
- A separate action was brought on the child’s behalf; this case involved only the parents’ emotional-distress claims.

## Issues

1. Whether a hospital owes a direct duty to a child’s parents, independent of the duty owed to the child, supporting recovery for the parents’ emotional distress from the child’s abduction.
2. Whether parents may recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress when they were not within the “zone of danger” and did not contemporaneously observe serious physical injury or death to the child.
3. Whether foreseeability of parental distress, standing alone, can create or define a legal duty sufficient to permit recovery, consistent with limits on liability for indirect emotional harm.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action.
- The court held that the hospital’s duty of care in these circumstances ran to the infant, not to the parents’ emotional well-being.
- The parents could not recover for emotional distress because they were not threatened with bodily harm, were outside the zone of danger, and did not witness serious physical injury or death to the child.
- The court rejected arguments that contract principles or an “in loco parentis” concept created a separate duty to the parents.
- The res ipsa loquitur pleading did not alter the analysis because it could not supply a duty to the parents where none existed.

## Legal Principles

- In New York, recovery for emotional distress derived from injury to another is generally limited to plaintiffs who were themselves threatened with bodily harm (zone of danger) and whose distress is tied to contemporaneous observation of serious physical injury or death to the other person.
- Foreseeability of emotional harm does not, by itself, establish a legal duty; it affects scope only after a duty is found to exist.
- A defendant’s negligence toward an injured person does not automatically create liability to third parties for consequential emotional harm absent a legally recognized duty running to those third parties.
- Res ipsa loquitur may support an inference of negligence, but it does not create an independent duty or expand the class of persons to whom a duty is owed.

## Conclusion

The court held that parents could not recover for their own emotional distress caused by the negligent abduction of their newborn from a hospital nursery because the hospital owed no direct duty to protect the parents’ emotional interests and the parents were outside New York’s zone-of-danger limits for indirect emotional-harm claims.


Johnson v. Jamaica Hosp., 62 N.Y.2d 523 (N.Y. 1984)